I agree that looking where people are putting their money is a good place to start when you don't have expertise on the subject. And it may be there is truth to both aspects. Of course, here in Texas they tell the story about everyone thinking Spindle Top was the wrong place to drill before a loaner drilled there and came a gusher. I would suspect that given the enormous costs associated with proving this out, it would be pretty hard for a modern day Patillo Higgens to test out his theory.

As far as something 5 miles below sea level having once been where the dinosaurs roamed, it is possible. But the deeper you go, the harder it becomes to support. I would think that the geology would be able to know this better as they could show the subsidence. But since Texas was under water where most of our oilfields are, it would seem that further out in the gulf was likewise under water. So then you have to account for about 4 miles of stuff on top of this oil. Certainly possible, but it just doesn't strike me as logical.

Members of Congress berated BP executives Thursday for allowing pipelines at Alaska's Prudhoe Bay oi...

I don't see how the depth is relevant--couldn't that region have been on the surface, tens of millions of years ago?

The depth of this find would point to the second explanation making more and more sense. If so, it would argue that the amount of oil is likely to be much more than we have anticipated, just the extent that we will have to drill for it being harder and harder.

http://www.energybulletin.net/20140.html

Not sure about point 5 - the basin in relativley cool and significant liquid production from 20,000 feet in the area is not unknown. The test results were reported in BOPD, and if gas would have been reported in MMCFGD. Most of the other technical points seem OK.

N.B. This comment was made when the entire post content was

Gulf Oil Find Could Boost U.S. Production 50 Percent
By James Joyner
Chevron has announced the