World Atlas of Oil and Gas Basins

摘要

This book is a summary of the life work of the petroleum geologist, Li Guoyu. His thesis is that any sedimentary rock filled basin is likely to have some oil and gas in it. This is likely as the sedimentary material when it is deposited will contain some organic material and if it is a basin it is, in effect, trapped. It does not follow that all basins contain oil or that those that do will be exploitable. However, it does provide a more optimistic view of carbon futures than models based on known deposits. Even if we cease to need oil and gas as fuel, and I do not see that happening very soon, we will still need hydrocarbons as raw materials for manufacturing carbon based chemicals. The author's optimistic estimate is that there is a trillion tons of oil in the reserves. The book is set out in a 105 short chapters. The first ten give an overview of world geology, classification of basins by cross section, economic data and the like. This is followed by chapters on countries and parts of countries. The first area covered is Asia, and China, where Li Guoyu is based, comes first. There then follows Africa, Europe, North America and South America. A final group of chapters covers Australasia and the Poles. The degree of detail depends on how much is already known of the particular basins. For example, Mozambique and surrounding countries where there a just two know gas sites is extensive.