Written Word thought-notes
Through these ancient pores: an autobiography of a sandstone reservoir By Andy Emery guest writer
Artwork above: I still have energy to give: untitled reservoir by artist Emma Theresa Jude, 2021. © Emma Theresa Jude.
It is hard to say when I was born exactly, whether in a spinning mass of superheated gas, or in the kernel of a sprouting-seed earth, or when I was thrust up to the surface during continental collision. Births and rebirths, but in my current form I know I became myself in deep abyss, a hadal firth where sunlight cannot penetrate. I formed in mass flows, guided by deep-sea channels, a trillion shimmering fragments of quartz tumbling irresistible to gravity’s lure, pulled from the continental shelf to fan out on abyssal plain. In Lower Cretaceous sea, I became me.
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As time crept on, my languor sealed me in stifling shales. A growing heat, fluid flow from above and below changed my silica bones, altered my very pores, overgrowths, sealed inside of me a porosity and permeability. That same heat affected my forebears differently, Kimmeridge kerogen cracking and degassing, charging my veins with -thanes, natural gas. Trapped inside of me, mixing with my blood waters, until it rose to impenetrable, impermeable barrier above my highest curves. p55
