Geology Reports⌕ Search

Geology topics

M. King Hubbert

Publications and source records attributed to M. King Hubbert.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
USGS1971

Banquet speech "Man's conquest of energy, its ecological and human consequences"

The world's energy resources suitable for power production are of two classes: (1) various channels of the continuous energy flux from extraterrestrial sources, and from the earth's interior, and (2) chemical, thermal, and nuclear energy stored in the outer part of the lithosphere and in the oceans. The continuous energy influxes are from: solar radiation, 178,000 × 1012 watts; geothermal energy, 32 × 1012 watts; and tidal energy, 3 × 1012 watts. Of the solar energy influx, the only fraction suitable at present for large-scale power production is the approximately 40,000 × 1012 watts expended in evaporation of water and in atmospheric and oceanic circulation. Of this, the world's potential water power is about 2.9 × 1012 watts. A very small fraction of the solar influx, 40 × 1012 watts, is stored chemically by photosynthesis. A minute fraction of this, stored during the geologic past, is the source of the energy of the fossil fuels, coal and petroleum. Tidal power is capable of large-scale development in a small number of coastal localities with a total potential power of about 64,000 megawatts. Of the sources of stored energy, geothermal energy is the least important. Installed capacity by 1970 is about 1,125 electrical megawatts, and the ultimate potential is estimated at about 60,000 megawatts, with a lifetime of probably less than a century. The largest sources of stored energy, other than nuclear, are the fossil fuels. The initial minable world reserves of coal and lignite are estimated to have been about 7.

IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science↗
USGS1965

Role of fluid pressure in mechanics of overthrust faulting: Reply

Davis cites four areas of low-angle faulting in which he believes that high fluid pressures can have played no important part in the development and movement of the thrust plates, but it seems to us that the concept or some variant of it may help to explain the observed field relationships in the three out of these four areas with which we have had some first-hand experience. In the areas of the Heart Mountain thrust of Wyoming, the Muddy Mountain thrust of Nevada, and the structurally higher, crystalline thrust sheets of the Swiss Alps, field relationships which include evidence of dehydration reactions during metamorphism of evaporites and of pelitic rocks suggest that interstitial fluid pressures may have been high and thus have played an essential part in the development of the thrust faults. In the fourth area cited by Davis, that of his own studies in the Klamath Mountains of California, we have had no first-hand experience and thus are not competent to answer his criticisms.

GSA Bulletin↗
USGS1959

Role of fluid pressure in mechanics of overthrust faulting: II. Overthrust belt in geosynclinal area of western Wyoming in light of fluid-pressure hypothesis

Pressures of interstitial fluids significantly greater than the normal hydrostatic pressure are known in many parts of the world. Many occurrences are in thick sections of relatively young sediments; some are in areas that have been intensely deformed. Abnormal fluid pressures in the Gulf Coast region are associated with thick bodies of shale or mudstone, and with high hydraulic gradients across bedding. The rocks there have been buried rather rapidly and are evidently not yet fully compacted. The mechanism by which clay consolidates under pressure affords a quantitative relationship among the variables—depth, strength of clay, and fluid pressure—and this relationship indicates that the Gulf Coast examples agree fairly well with observations on depth and porosity in Paleozoic shales of Oklahoma and Tertiary shales of Venezuela. Critical data are lacking, but permeability clearly decreases tremendously as clay rocks are compacted. This decrease in permeability provides a self-sealing mechanism that greatly retards the escape of pore water from deeply buried clay rocks. The relationship between rate of compaction and the development of abnormal fluid pressures probably applies not only to clay rocks but also to carbonates and possibly to micaceous and chloritic metamorphic rocks. Conditions of geosynclinal deposition are, in general, those most favorable to the development of abnormal fluid pressures. The hypothesis that large-scale overthrusting is facilitated by abnormal fluid pressures which, in turn, are associated with geosynclinal deposition is applied to the overthrust belt of western Wyoming and adjacent States. This is a long curving belt of several bedding-plane faults which have an aggregate horizontal displacement across the belt of 50 miles or more. The sedimentary rocks that make up the belt were evidently deposited in a major geosyncline bordered by uplands not far to the west. At any given locality, the rate of deposition of the sediments increased continuously until the beginning of intense deformation and overthrusting. The geosynclinal axis and the bordering uplands probably migrated slowly eastward across the belt. Several lines of indirect evidence suggest that abnormal fluid pressures developed in this region during final stages of rapid geosynclinal sinking and that thick plates of Paleozoic and Mesozoic sedimentary rocks sheared off from the underlying rocks and moved slowly eastward. Rate of movement probably was controlled by erosion of upfolds that arose at the front of each moving plate. The fundamental cause of the lateral stresses that propelled the overthrusts is not known, but it may be examined instructively in the light of the fluid-pressure hypothesis. The thrust sheets might, for example, have slid by simple gravitation down the western limb of the geosyncline on reasonable slopes and not improbable fluid pressure-overburden ratios. Such large-scale slumping of thrust sheets, however, seems to require gaps at the rear of the thrust sheets. The long intermontane valleys of Idaho and Utah may possibly have originated as such gaps or rifts, but no proof has yet been recognized that they were formed in this manner. An alternative possibility, regional compression, requires concentration of the lateral stresses within the upper few miles of the earth's crust; in this general region emplacement of the Idaho batholith seems the most likely source of such superficially concentrated stresses. However, this batholith is so far from the front edge of the overthrust belt that it would require extremely high fluid pressure-overburden ratios over a wide area. Perhaps some combination of the two forces—pushing wide thrust plates down a gentle slope—is the most likely explanation.

GSA Bulletin↗