I'm not real sure about the source who states that no fossils have ever been discovered below 16K feet. Perhaps he is talking about a specific basin. Pretty much all sediment that is deposited below sea-level will be littered with Microfossils of some sort or the other. Expensive, Deepwater Operations have a team of onsite Paleontologist who crush the cuttings & identify classification of these microscopic fossils in order to learn the age of the formation that is being penetrated. I've seen Jurassic Age formations in Mississippi Canyon #392 that were identified by their microfossils at 30,000 feet.
Thinking of the GoM Basin a giant bowl, sediment is very thick in the middle (over 40K feet & as shallow as 8K feet around the edges. When drilling and you hit the boundary where sedimentary rock stops & the earth's crust begins, you are said to have hit the 'basement', and drilling is discontinued because hydrocarbons are rarely found in basement rocks. Basement rocks are like hard, metamorphic or igneous rocks like granite or basalt, and would lack fossils of any sort.
There are a few cases where reservoirs have been found in basement rocks, but two conditions must be met. 1) there must be an organic rich source-rock that is located above the basement structure with a cap-rock of some sort above it to prevent the hydrocarbons from migrating up. 2) the basement rock must be naturally fractured in order to provide the porosity & permeability, so that the basement can function as a produceable reservoir.
Perhaps your source has stumbled across an occurrence like this??? I don't know, but it's interesting to think about...
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Why does SIOR always fall when I am out of money for more shares??? it makes me so mad...
