Isogeotherm Hypothesis Of Mineral Occurrence And - Paperback

Isogeotherm Hypothesis Of Mineral Occurrence And Origin: Origin Of Petroleum, Coal And Other Carbonaceous Products Showing how these products occur in orderly, definite, limited horizons, independently of the plane of stratification. - 1911 - ISOGEOTHERM HYPOTHESIS I. - OCCURRENCE of COAL. - PETROLEUM, c aPetroleum and coal occur in strata of various ages, the general series of which may be of the greatest variety of texture and hardness, and the general appearance of which may vary greatly in digeerent fields. but in every region where they occur there is a something in common that is more or less discernable to the observer, but which is very diGcult to describe. I am not now referring to the oil stains or coal blossom that are generally easily distinguishable where erosion has cut into or through the oil or coal horizons, but to the series of strata in general, extending thousands of feet above and below those products. UMany observers, in trying to define this similarity, call it the age of the strata, it apparently being much younger and m o r e c r u m b l y than strata in the same series many thousands of feet under it, but this is not the true solution, as dif ferent oil and coal bearing strata vary greatly in age, as determined by the fossils occurring in them those of Pennsylvania, for instance, being robably several times as old as those of California. The true solution is each horizon of like products has been subjected to a like approxi mate pressure from the mass of material above it, - and to an exactly like maximum of heat at the time of its greatest subsidence and that this heat was the point of distillation of these products probably several hundred degrees. seemsquite plain, -and that the source of this heat - was the presence of enough material above the carbonaceous horizons to create it through the orderly increase of heat downward in the earths crust, must become apparent as soon as the facts in connection are generally known. a The classiGcation of strata, according to the amount of pressure and heat they were subjected to, is of the greatest importance from a mineral standpoint, when we consider that most of the earths present land surface has plainly had miles of material eroded from above it. This feature must not be lost sight of if we expect to form rational theories of the present condition of any part of this grand old earths sub-surface. a The original superficial deposits above the - etroleurn must have been so vast, that where only half of them remain, the petroleum must be hopelessly beyond our reach. That this is so, is proven many ways, the most simple 01 which . is the very slow augmentation oh, or increase of firmness in the strata as you trace them stratagraphically downward. It also seems plain that thoucands of feet of the upper portion of the original deposits could have been little else than loose, incoherent masses, owing to the lack of sufficient pressure and heat to knit them into substantial strata, sufficiently firm to resist the wave erosion, as they emerged above the surface of the ocean. QI In the following pages I intend to show that - - in the continuance of its aggregate occurrence, forms a definite, limited horizon independently of the plane of stratification and I hope that the reader will not lose sight of the grand and enormous scale on which the series oh deposits were originally laid down...