The Southern California oil fields are located along the San Andreas Fault line which allows hydrocarbons to seep up from the crystalline basement: Southern California Hot Spot Hits 812 Degrees, Baffles Experts. (Hat tip: John A. Bailo)
The area has recorded high temperatures at least five times since 1987, Allen King, a retired geologist with the U.S. Forest Service told the newspaper.
The hot spot is located in steep, rugged terrain a few miles north of the town of Fillmore on land owned by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and leased by Seneca Resources Corp.
Officials who are familiar with the patch of land, which is near the large Sespe Oil Field, have come up with a few theories as to why the ground soared to 812 degrees fahrenheit on August 1.
One theory is that natural hydrocarbons, such as oil or gas, are burning deep in the earth and seeping out through cracks in the area, causing the surface to rapidly heat and generate smoke.
According to the Star, Allen King, a former geologist with the U.S. Forest Service recently stuck a thermometer into the ground and got a reading of 550 degrees — so hot that it melted the glue holding the sole of his boots together.
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OIL SEEPS IN CALIFORNIA, ALASKA, IRAQ, AND AROUND THE CASPIAN SEA: HIGH PRESSURE, LOTS OF OIL
There is a high correlation between oil seeps and high pressure oil deposits, which more often than not are large oil deposits with substantial "flow rates."
California has a large number of oil seeps both on land and under the sea. Many oil wells in California still produce oil decades after first production.
Earthquakes periodically cause oil seeps to appear. And California has a geological record showing intense 'solfataric' heat with sulphur permeating many geologic formations.
To get a solid appreciation for the range and extent of California oil seeps this link provides a map of California outlining the geographical range of oil seeps.
Could this Ventura County hot spot be a "push" of hot oil, or even oil on fire underground? Looking at the map, Ventura County is right in the middle of oil seep "alley."
We all know Iraq has huge oil reserves, but most people don't know the oil literally comes "bubbling" out of the ground in
Northern Iraq from oil seeps.
Alsaka also has oil seeps on the North Slope. "Early explorers of the region, such as Leffingwell at the turn of the century, found oil seeps and oil-stained sands." This was the first sign Alaska had oil on the North Slope.
Again, oil seeps led to oil discoveries around the Caspian Sea. "The existence of rich oil resources in the region from the western slopes of the Caspian Sea basin to the mountains of Afghanistan has been known for millennia."
Further:
"The ancient Greeks and Romans could not help but notice on their travels the spectacular "eternal fires" that dotted the landscape all the way from Baku, in present-day Azerbaijan, to Persia and Turkmenia. Legend has it that one of the servants of Alexander the Great accidently struck oil while trying to pitch a tent for his master in Turkmenia. According to the Roman historian Pliny the Elder, Alexander the Great observed burning natural oil wells in Bactria, which comprised today's northern Afghanistan and parts of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan."
Why are there oil seeps? High pressure oil deposits is the answer.
So much pressure that oil is "forced" to the surface.
The higher the pressure the higher the percentage of oil in relation to the reservoir "medium" such as sand.
California has some of the highest natural oil pressures in the world.
Isn't it about time Californians "cash in" on their natural bounty.
Instead of letting it "seep" into the environment?
THE LAW OF PHYSICAL ENTROPY
Some readers may say of the previous comment: "So what, that doesn't prove Abiotic Oil, one way or the other."
And my response would be, "you're right."
Not all comments on this website revolve around Abiotic Oil, some relate to general questions of oil's supply.
But there was a "silver lining" in my previous comment that was related to evidence of Abiotic Oil.
Did you catch it?
No?
Here's a hint: Pressure.
The law of entropy, more commonly known, and repeatedly referred to, and invoked, here, on this website as the Second Law of Thermodynamics, has a corollary of physical entropy.
As an example: pouring a small amount of milk in your coffee -- the milk doesn't stay in one spot, it spreads out, or diffusses, evenly across the entire cup of coffee.
Solutions of similar atomic weight liquids will evenly diffuse across the entire body of material in a closed container.
What does this have to do with crude oil?
If "fossil" theory was correct, oil would form over a wide area in a evenly diffused pattern.
There would be a strong tendency for the oil, not to concentrate, but to remain in a state of difussion. And certainly, not to concentrate to such a point as to generate the kind of pressure that would drive oil to the surface in oil seeps.
Yes, there would be instances of concentration, but they would be rare and the concentrations would tend not to generate high pressure.
Abiotic Oil, on the other hand, is all about pressure. From the moment it enters the sedimentary strata, as a result of "injection," pressure is generated, because for any force, there is an opposite force.
The only way oil moves up trough the sedimentary strata is to overcome that "opposite force" with natural buouancy (less density than the surrounding material) and an "injection point source pressure."
So, high pressure oil, which oil seeps are evidence of, suggests a direct connection or conduit to the injection source deep below that is still active.
That would explain "fountains of fire" in the area of the Caspian Sea lasting thousands of years.
Would crude oil derived from organic detritus maintain pressure for thousands of years from pressure releasing conduits to the surface?
No. At best it would be short lived and transitory. Like the pressure of a punctured car tire, which dissipates in a relatively short time period.
Long term pressure, after the "container" is "punctured" shows that there is an injection of material, somewhere else in the system, which serves to maintain pressure.
In Abiotic Oil's case, oil being "forced" into the system from deep below.
So the fact that oil seeps demonstate pressure in the system and the evidence is that these seeps (a physical observation of continued pressure in the "system") continue over long periods of time (such as the 'fountains of fire' around the Caspian Sea), demonstrates that oil seeps and high pressure oil are manifestations of Abiotic Theory.
The pressure keeps mounting for Abiotic Oil.
"Silver linings" are not evident at first glance.
Perhaps, geologists have simply failed to look for the "silver lining" in their own dark clouds.
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