While thinking about scientific topics that interested me for this blog post, my mind wandered to the Middle East and the conflicts that have occurred over valuable oil deposits. As a Political Science Minor, I feel I have a decent grasp of what is going on in the world today, but realized I have no idea what the worldwide distribution of oil looks like. My hypothesis is that the Middle East is the most oil-concentrated region in the world, evidenced by years of oil wars in the region. This picture shows not only where in the world oil is found, but labels the amount in billions of barrels:
Looking at the numbers, America’s interest in the Middle East begins to become more clear. In his paper “Why So Much Oil in the Middle East?” petroleum geoscientist Rasoul Sorkhabi writes, “the term “MIddle East” focuses on the oil-rich countries in southwest Asia including Iran, Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, and Yemen. These ten countries together have an area of 5.1 million square kilometers or about 3.4%of Earth’s land surface, but they possess 60% of world’s known oil reserves and 41% of natural gas reserves.” But why is there so much oil in the Middle East? The region was primed to become resource rich through years of ocean subduction and micro-continental collision, which created a basement rock, “thus enriching marine sediments with organic carbon necessary for oil generation,” according to Sorkhabi. The oil-rich Middle East is just one example of science having a massive impact on world politics.
http://www.geoexpro.com/article/Why_So_Much_Oil_in_the_Middle_East/58d94fc1.aspx