How to predict an oil field?

How do the oil companies do it?How to predict an oil field?
There are multiple ways of determining whether certain areas of ground contain any hydrocarbons. It also varies on whether you are talking about onshore of offshore. The most productive and economic way is seismic surveys. By doing this, oil companies can detect changes in rock densities, such as a shift form a trap, to the reseviour rock, to the source rock. The trap might be a non porous rock which keeps the hydrocarbons from seeping to the surface. Another way of determining where oil might be found is magnetic surveys, which are typically done with aircraft. Another method is pertochemistry. This is drilling with in a location for informational purposes only; not for production. This is the most acturate way of of determining because samples don't lie, but it is also the most expensive. Then there are some companies that use ';wildcatters.'; These are people that use geophysical data to ';guess'; that oil might be in a certain location. Good wildcatters only have about a 10% success rate and are becoming more obsolete due to the fact that the amount of oil fields left to be discovered are diminishing. In conclusion, there are mutiple ways that companies determine where hydrocarbons may be found, and they typically use more than one of the methods above. Also, I am sure there are plenty of more ways about doing this with increasing technology. Hope this helps!How to predict an oil field?
Oil fields are not ';predicted'; per se. they are usually found around other oil discoverys. explosives are set off and, sensitive instruments are used to read the echos that are produced by the blasts. these echos are read by computers that can distinguish different densities underground and with the technology available at tthis time ,they can see oil pockets underground.