Abiogenic petroleum: the rule of Kudryavtsev

One of the main defenders of the abiogenic theory was the Russian geologist Nikolai Kudryavtsev.

He argued that no petroleum resembling the chemical composition of natural crudes has ever been made from plant material in the laboratory under conditions resembling those in nature.

He gave many examples of substantial and sometimes commercial quantities of petroleum being found in crystalline or metamorphic basements, or in sediments directly overlying those. He cited cases in Kansas, California, Western Venezuela and Morocco.also pointed out that oil pools in sedimentary strata are often related to fractures in the basement directly below.

Kudryavtsev stated in 1973 that any region in which hydrocarbons are found at one level will also have hydrocarbons in large or small quantities at all levels down to and into the basement rock. 

This phenomenon is called “the Rule of Kudryavtsev”.

According to this rule where oil and gas deposits are found, there will often be coal seams above them.

Gas is usually the deepest in the pattern, and can alternate with oil. All petroleum deposits have a capstone, which is generally impermeable to the upward migration of hydrocarbons. This capstone leads to the accumulation of the hydrocarbon.

This is evidenced by the Ghawar supergiant oil field (Saudi Arabia), the Panhandle Field in Kansas, which also produces helium; the Tengiz Field of Kazakhstan;White Tiger Field (Vietnam) and innumerable others. The Lost Soldier Field in Wyoming has oil pools, he stated, at every horizon of the geological section, from the Cambrian sandstone overlying the basement to the Upper Cretaceous deposits. A flow of oil was also obtained from the basement itself. Hydrocarbon gases, he noted, are not rare in igneous and metamorphic rocks of the Canadian Shield. Petroleum in Precambrian gneiss is encountered in wells on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal. Kudryavtsev concluded that commercial accumulations are simply found where permeable zones are overlaid by impermeable ones.

Reference:

Kudryavtsev N.A., 1973. Genesis of oil and gas. - Leningrad, Nedra Press. - 216 p. (in Russian)

Information from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Kudryavtsev