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Using Microfossils in Petroleum Exploration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2017

Brian J. O'neill
Brian J. O'neill*
Affiliation:
Shell Offshore Inc. New Orleans, Louisiana
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When I meet new people and they find out that I'm a paleontologist working for an oil company, the second question they ask (after “What is a paleontologist?”) is usually “Why would an oil company hire one?” Most people think of dinosaurs or, at the very least, trilobites and other invertebrate fossils when they think of paleontology. However, most of the rock samples available to those engaged in finding and developing hydrocarbon resources are in the form of “cuttings.” Cuttings (Baker, 1979) are the small pieces of rock broken up by the drill bit and brought to the surface by the fluid which lubricates the drill bit and removes the cut rock from the bottom of the drill hole. If the bit encounters dinosaur bones or clam shells, they are so broken up in the process as to be almost unusable. Microfossils on the other hand, by virtue of their small size, can be recovered whole. Microfossils also happen to be abundant, especially in marine rocks, which are the most common form of sedimentary rock in the crust of the Earth.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Paleontological Society Papers , Volume 2: Learning from the Fossil Record , October 1996 , pp. 237 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 by The Paleontological Society 

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