Deep Drilling in Impact Craters

2006年1月17日火曜日17:18:07

4 December 2005 I mentioned new studies of an impact crater in the Chesapeake Bay. The drilling down to 1.77 km (the crater floor) was successful and the cores are now being studied. Not only will the drilling cores tell a tale about the asteroid that slammed into the Earth with incredible speed 35 million years ago in a then shallow marine environment, but they are also expected to give new insights into global sea level since then and other spin-offs.

Terra Daily of 13 January 2006 at http://www.terradaily.com/news/A_Mile_Under_Chesapeake_Bay_Evidence_Of_Asteroid_Impact.html

The drilling reminds me of drilling in the Siljan Impact Crater (Sweden) in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The goal at that time was to find oil. The theory was (sorry a minority still sticks to it, so I’ve better say is) that (inorganic) methane (gas) migrates upwards from the mantle and transforms into oil in the upper crust in igneous rocks (like granite). – If true all our sorrows over gas and oil supplies might be solved just by drilling deep enough!

The Siljan ring is a crater of granitic rocks overlain by soil formed by a large meteorite impact 360 million years ago. The impact was postulated to have created fractures at great depth trough which gas and oil have been able to migrate.

Although a little bit of oil was found, the drilling was more or less a failure – as far as oil and gas is concerned. Either the theory was wrong – or they might of course have drilled in the wrong places, or not deep enough! (Whom am I to tell?)

Here is a bit from the Oil & Gas Journal in January 1991 (when the project was running) http://pennwell.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Oil+%26+Gas+Journal+-+COMMERCIAL+WILDCAT+PLANNED+IN+SWEDEN%26%2339%3BS+SILJAN+CRATER&expire=&urlID=16706888&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffe.pennnet.com%2FArticles%2FArticle_Display.cfm%3FSection...ON_ID%3D25%26ARTICLE_ID%3D16692&partnerID=1455

A (recent) discussion (in Geotimes) on the origin of fossil fuels – organic or inorganic – is found at http://www.geotimes.org/oct05/feature_abiogenicoil.html

An imaginative account of the Siljan impact event is found at http://www.siljan.se/ny2004/eng/active_crater.htm

More on impact craters at http://whatonearth.olehnielsen.dk/impactcraters.asp

Other continental drilling projects in impact craters in different parts of the world are either ongoing or planned, so I may report on some of them later.

Ole

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