Page 11 - Petroleum Geology

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own logic. No geochemical hypothesis can be satisfactory unless it is also
satisfactory from a geological point of view. This is not to assert that the
geochemists are wrong, but rather to assert that the search for the truth
about oil generation and migration must be a search for hypotheses that are
geologically as well as chemically satisfying. It is not at all clear that this
happy state has been reached in any major petroleum province.
Finally, it must be remembered that whether an hypothesis is correct or
erroneous cannot be determined by voting. The majority is not always right.
A vote taken in 1950 on the validity of continental drift would have had a
very different result from one taken in 1980. My friend S.W. Carey, who
would probably have been in the minority on both votes, may yet turn out
to be more correct than the rest of us!
It is therefore my earnest hope that readers will read this book not with
their eyes but with their minds, to try and get at the fundamentals of the
various problems and, above all, to develop an independent assessment of
the nature of petroleum geology. The answers to our problems lie in the
geology of our petroleum provinces and the geology of provinces without
petroleum, not in books.

Brisbane, 3 October 1982 RICHARD E. CHAPMAN