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AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 36 (1952)

Issue: 12. (December)

First Page: 2231

Last Page: 2236

Title: Toward a Philosophy of Oil-Finding

Author(s): Wallace E. Pratt (2)

Abstract:

The United States--a country whose total petroleum resources constitute but a minor fraction of the total for the earth as a whole--has supplied from oil fields within its own boundaries two-thirds of all the oil the world has consumed in the past. This remarkable record might plausibly be attributed to the proficiency of Americans in the art of oil-finding. But petroleum geologists, on whose science the art of oil-finding is based, make no such claim. Geologists generally have failed to anticipate the magnitude of the petroleum resources now proved to have existed in this country. On the contrary, our best informed authorities have consistently and grossly underestimated the size of these resources in the past. No one has been more surprised than they at our achievement. As a matter of fact, a finished art of prospecting is not the only factor--not even the most important factor--in making possible the discovery of the oil fields which make up the petroleum resources of a nation. There exist more formidable barriers to success in oil-finding than the lack of perfected methods and techniques of exploration: the ultra-conservatism of the trained scientist and engineer, the tendency of the human mind to discount or to ignore the significance of what remains unknown to it, the restriction of free enterprise, these have been greater handicaps to success in the search for oil fields over the world. Where oil fields are really found, in the final analysis, is in the minds of men and we have found an unparalleled number of oil fields in the United States, not be ause our petroleum resources were exceptionally abundant, but because in our economic and political climate men have enjoyed unparalleled freedom to devote themselves to the search for oil fields.

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