Athabasca. Alistair MacLean

Чтение книги онлайн.

       PROLOGUE

      This book is not primarily about oil, but is based on oil and the means whereby oil is recovered from the earth, so it may be of some interest and help to look briefly at these phenomena.

      What oil is, and how it is formed in the first place, no one quite seems to know. The technical books and treatises on this subject are legion – I am aware that, personally, I haven’t seen a fraction of them – and they are largely, so I am assured, in close agreement – except when they come to what one would have thought was a point of considerable interest: how, precisely, does oil become oil? There appear to be as many divergent theories about this as there are about the origins of life. Confronted with complexities, the well-advised layman takes refuge in over-simplification – which is what I now do, as I can do no other.

      Only two elements were needed for the formation of oil – rock, and the incredibly abundant plants and primitive living organisms that teemed in rivers, lakes and seas as far back as perhaps a billion years ago. Hence the term fossil fuels.

      The Biblical references to the rock of ages give rise to misconceptions about the nature and permanency of rock. Rock – the material of which the earth’s crust is made – is neither eternal nor indestructible. Nor is it even unchanging. On the contrary, it is in a state of constant change, movement and flux, and it is salutary to remind ourselves that there was a time when no rock existed. Even today there is a singular lack of agreement among geologists, geo-physicists and astronomers as to how the earth came into being; but there is a measure of agreement that there was a primary incandescent СКАЧАТЬ