Early geophysical papers of the Early geophysical papers of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists earlygeophysical00soci Year: 1947 APPLICATIONS OF GEOTHERMICS TO GEOLOGY 33 of heat that can be obtained by the oxidation of petroleum in its na- tural state. Let us assume that the heat-generating disk is 100 feet in thickness and that 1/3 of the entire volume is crude oil. Then a column of rock, 1 square centimeter in cross section and 100 feet in length, contains about 900 grams of oil, and as the heat of combustion of crude oil is about 11,094 calories per gram, it follows from our preced
Early geophysical papers of the Early geophysical papers of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists earlygeophysical00soci Year: 1947 APPLICATIONS OF GEOTHERMICS TO GEOLOGY 33 of heat that can be obtained by the oxidation of petroleum in its na- tural state. Let us assume that the heat-generating disk is 100 feet in thickness and that 1/3 of the entire volume is crude oil. Then a column of rock, 1 square centimeter in cross section and 100 feet in length, contains about 900 grams of oil, and as the heat of combustion of crude oil is about 11,094 calories per gram, it follows from our preceding value of q that all of the oil would be oxidized in (11,094X900) = years. As this result is not in agreement with geological facts,, we conclude that the oxidation of oil may be a contributing factor, but it is not sufficient in itself to maintain the constant tem- perature differences which exist at Haverhill. Werner (36) regards petroleum deposits as special sources of heat. He believes that the DeptK Fig. 13.—Sketch of depth-temperature curves. Heat source at /;. presence of carbonic acid in the gases is evidence of oxidation brought about probably by the presence of free oxygen in salt water. In Figure 13, the line ad represents a depth-temperature curve on the basis of normal cooling. The excess of soil temperature over air temperature, e, is represented by aa. The line abc represents a depth- temperature curve when there is a source of heat at b. Curves of this type have been found at El Dorado, Kansas; Coalinga, California; Big Lake, Texas, and in some other fields. Ordinarily, however, the curva- ture is in the opposite direction. It remains to consider the possibility that radium is a source of heat beneath anticlines. Three factors are involved, namely, transmission of heat along the strata, an excess of radium in granite as compared with the sediments, and the presence beneath the oil-bearing strata of a granitic mass that stands above the gener
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