Some trenches fill with eroded continental land mass from an adjacent mountain chain and create a subduction melange of sediments.

But if the subduction zone is active, these deposits do go under: so not really.

To get oil you need BASINS. these can form in a variety of ways, typically, the north sea is a failed rift valley that sunk and was subject to rapid burial. This failed rift was probably a first attempt at an Atlantic. (though maybe theories have changed a bit in the last 30 years...)

Oil in Brazil and its opposite numbers in West Africa, formed when the Atlatic Ocean was much younger and South America and Africa were a close fit, separated by a depositional basin.

As this early basin provided all the right ingredients: Organic matter - source rocks, Clastic reservoirs, Clay and mud and salt seals, and rapid burial to cook the kerogens.

Then , the Atlantic continued its split, giving continental crust and oil deposits on both sides of the Atlantic.

BTW: This is why the Canadians look on the Atlantic coast as do the Brits and Irish on the Atlantic Margin.

Just to add on to what MUDLOGGER said, some sediment does subduct in a trench, in fact this is called an accretionary wedge. Don't think of it as chunks though, the aspect ratio on sedimentary rock is more like a piece of paper than a "block". i.e. wide and flat. So typically in continental crust collisions sediments, like sheaves of paper, just crumple and form the Himalyas or get skimmed off like California and glued to the side of a continent (think what it would look like if Japan got stuck onto the side of Asia). But when you have oceanic plate subducting under continental plate, some of the sediment can get pulled under the continental plate alongside the denser oceanic plate.


I wouldn't think of an accretionary wedge as a good place to form oil, too much stuff getting smashed up and moving around. Although, just a cursory glance at google showed me this which seems to indicate that there is at least the possibility of oil deposits in them.

"just crumple and form the Himalyas or get skimmed off like California"

i think i understand what you are saying here, but it is my understanding and belief that the himalayas were created when two continents collided. i dont believe there is any similar collision anywhere on earth.

and i think your california example and hypothetical japan/asia collision represent islands, carried along on an ocean plate, colliding with a continent.

.....and, how can i view that tiny cia print on the document you cite ?

Deffeyes addressed the question of finding oil in the ocean bed beyond the shelves in his '01 book. He describes the necessary conditions for formation of oil, then states:

So now we have an agenda:an oil province has to contain organic rich source rocks, and the source rocks have to have been buried below 7500 feet but no deeper than 15000 feet. If these ingredients are not present, no amount of drilling is going to find oil. Here's an example: the sediments on the floor of the deep sea are about 3000 feet thick. Even if organic rich layers were present near the base of the sediments, they would not even be half way to the top of the oil window. This paragraph wipes out 60% of the earth's surface as a potential source for oil.

It would have to be some new-fangled kind of oil to have formed there I guess.

I read a blooomberg article 28 April

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aalWn.eJHGZk&refer=l...

"...Pumping oil from the Brazilian finds, parts of which are 32,000 feet (10,000 meters) below the ocean's surface..."

Obviously 32,000 feet is much deeper than "but no deeper than 15000 feet"

So how does that work then?

7500-15000 feet below the dirt surface, whether air or water lies above that.
32K feet of water may change the pressure/temperature map slightly for that deposit, but it is depth below the solid surface that most counts.

Thanks. I realised it would be the depth below the solid surface that mostly counted but thought it was around 7,000 feet deep but carelessly didn't mention that:-( so the water must be deeper then i thought.