this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2025
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“Think about it. They drained a lot of oil in the Middle East, so there must be cool underground lakes of oil you can paddle around in down there.” -Gas station geologist
I understand that oil isn't just sitting around in big empty voids in the rock, and that those voids are full of gravel and such, and that we're also injecting water and such into the wells to maintain pressure, etc.
But I'd be willing to bet (a small amount, maybe like $50 tops) that out of the thousands of oil wells we've drilled over the years, that through some quirk of geology, some void has opened up somewhere down there with just enough liquid oil and open space that you could probably get a kayak on it and paddle around in a small circle.
I'm thinking probably more like the size of a smallish above ground swimming pool, not a decent sized lake that would actually be worth paddling around on.
Of course there's also the issue of the pressure at that depth, and the fact that any atmosphere down there is probably gonna be natural gas and not breathable air, so you'd probably have to do it in a hard diving suit
I'm with you in thinking that this is not impossible. I think geology is something that can do funny things in some places.
By the way, in some places oil seems to be pretty close to the surface. If you visit the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles sometime, there's essentially an open lake of oil (tar) that you can visit, and as you walk the grounds around it you'll see some spots where the tar is seeping out from the ground and you have to watch out not to step on it.
In the olden days oil reserves were discovered because oil was straight up seeping out of the ground.
I've heard that too! I also remember cartoons where a character would hit the ground with a pick axe and oil would come gushing out.
‘There Will Be Blood’ depicts those early days quite graphically.
True! I didn't even think about that. Great movie.
All I can think of is the dude inside the oil tanker in water world
What a horrible existence