aggiedad Loc: Corona, ca

If you’ll recall, back in the 70’s the scientists said we were on the cusp of a new ice age. Settled science they said. Get Your Eddie Bauer parka they said. What happened to those experts? Well, they then needed more grants to support their incomes, so now we have global warming to pontificate upon, to finance new speeches and even movies. That is the true inconvenient truth.

bodiebill

You did not work in the oil industry but were a customer.
I spent my adult career in the exploration, drilling and production part of the oil industry. The finding of oil is heavily based on geology, geophysics and earth sciences.

sheebe Loc: Lake Isabella, CA

You are correct. They are redoing our dam in Lake Isabella. Earthen Dam. Makes me worried. That 7.1 quake was terrifying. Day before that one too. 7.1 was a spiking. Vicious. Our town had damage our highway 178. Other than that. Trona is in bad shape and Ridgecrest. A lot of aftershocks. Night of the 7.1 there was continuous aftershocks and I was a mess. Today they are closer together. When a quake erupts it makes another quake. Am keeping positive thoughts. I must still live my life. You are correct on what you said. Other post also.

dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

As for me working in the oil industry, a few states have passed laws making it illegal for the customer to pump his own gas. When I grew up nobody pumped his own fuel. Nor did they check oil, water or wash their own windows. That all came from paid employees. Therefore I look at it from a point of view that if I did not pump my own fuel then someone would be paid, once again, to pump my fuel. So I am a paid employee by hopefully cheaper gas. You can look at it any way you choose. That is my way and since it is me, my truck and my diesel fuel I am correct.

I asked what part you played, without going back to my exact words, in the oil industry. It sounds like you were holding back if you worked in drilling. That is certainly closer than most of us might get to under the ground.

Dennis

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

(Download)

bodiebill

Dennis
after you pumped your own diesel fuel you paid for the fuel, and were a customer, not a paid employee,
nor worked in the oil industry. Likewise if you put air in your tires you were not in the tire industry, but still a customer.
I described my work in the oil industry as working in "exploration, drilling and production", what is known as "upstream" in the industry. I did all of those.
"Downstream" is refining and marketing.
Pipe lines, which are separate, connect the producing oil fields, refineries and the markets.

One of my many interests is geology, both physical and historical. The study of historical geology gives one a long view of "earth time". Especially related to "ice ages" if you want to discuss "Global Climate Change", and "continental drift" related to earthquakes and volcanism.

Go to USGS/CalTech website for some really good info on earthquakes. California has thousands of faults, some large like San Andreas, Garlock, Hayward, etc.. Each of these have associated smaller and minor fault systems. Good information and knowledge.

When the San Andreas fault ruptures everything east will slip in the Atlantic Ocean and California will have two ocean fronts.
Bodiebill

sheebe Loc: Lake Isabella, CA

Yes I do have a app that shows the map and the aftershocks, time they hit. Thank you. Still am staying put up here. A lot want to move now. Life is a gamble. Cannot run from an event that we have no power to stop. Still I am scared. Be lying if I said I wasn't.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Working in the petroleum industry involves a lot of knowledge of geology.
My Geology 101 & 102 professor way back when had worked in the petroleum industry for many years searching for petroleum. Then his Grandfather died and no one else in the family wanted to run Granddad's business (a small specialty tobacco company that among other things made stuff for the Hudson's Bay Trading Company that they distributed to the Inuit(Eskimo) and various Indian tribes all over Canada. So he came home to Western Kentucky to run the company. The President of the local college I attended my first two years was an old school buddy of his and talked him into teaching part time - but he did things his way. We all had sample kits of over 100 types of minerals and the pieces were big enough to do tests on etc. His buddies and former students in the petroleum industry etc sent him crates of mineral samples from all over the world on a regular basis. (The school custodians did not welcome seeing those crates - they were heavy.)
We did at least one field trip a month on a weekend, we even went spelunking one Sunday and we visited one of the smaller faults of the New Madrid Fault Zone (He predicted that one day that fault zone would trash the Mississippi & Ohio Valley area from the Lakes to the Gulf.)
He really knew his stuff and our classes were great. The certification people for colleges rated our class the equal of the 101 & 102 classes at the Missouri School of Mines and the Colorado School of Mines. In the mid 60s those were the big guns for those wanting to get degrees in mining, petroleum etc.

dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

Yes, I know I am not REALLY an employee of an oil company but I still stick to my version.

I have lived in California off and on for many years. I have been through quite a few good sized earthquakes as well. I am fine with the knowledge I have.

Dennis

Old Coot

Obviously you do not understand it

pendennis

My father was born and raised in Eddyville, KY, where his grandfather was a captain of the prison guards. His father owned some property not far from Paducah, and kept the mineral rights when he sold it. He passed away in 1942, but my grandmother was paid until her death in 1964, then my father and uncle got small checks until my dad passed away in 2001. As we understood the contract, those royalties only lasted two generations. There are still a lot of active oil wells in western Kentucky. We've been back a number of times, and the pumps are still running. I imagine that the fact that because there's so much coal in the region, oil probably goes hand in glove.

A number of years ago, my wife and I visited Reelfoot Lake. We first drove the perimeter, then took the time to visit as much area as possible on foot. The one thing I noticed about Reelfoot, was its stark "lakescape". It looked almost primeval.

SteveFranz Loc: Durham, NC

Pumping oil does not leave a void - there are no underground "pools" of oil. Generally oil is pumped out of "porous" solid rock, or oil sands where oil collects between the grains.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Some of those trees/stumps sticking up out of the water are the ones that were growing there in 1811. Add in the fact that the average depth is only 5.5' so some types of trees can grow up out of the water. Large parts of the lake are a flooded forest.

bodiebill

Partially correct. Oil and natural gas are in the porous rock--interstitial space between the sand grains, or porous limestone. Place a red brick in a pan of shallow water and watch the water soak into the pore space. That is akin to an oil reservoir
There is no "lake" of oil to drain and leave a cavity that can collapse.
It is speculated that fracing might cause minor earth shakes, but not conclusive proof.
Most of these stories are sourced by "green people" who are anti-fossil fuel zealots.
Just imagine what we would do without oil,natural gas and coal!
The oil and coal industry saved the whales from extinction! Kerosene replaced whale oil for lighting.

bodiebill

Oil wells are cased in multiple strings of steel pipe that is cemented into the well bore.
Oil production is well below the water table, and contamination of ground water has never been conclusively proven to be caused from fracing. More likely is mine runoff, human contamination and "Roundup" being sprayed on golf courses!