Earth's Orbit Could Indicate Where New Oil Reserves Are Hidden

Oil being a non-renewable resource, we are approaching a peak in production which, according to some experts, could cause supply tensions between 2030 and 2040. All means are good to ensure that the industry does not let the slightest drop of black gold slip through its fingers, which remains, even today, the main cog powering the entire global economy. Today, global reserves of shale oil (more difficult to extract than conventional oil) considered technically recoverable are estimated at around 345 to 420 billion barrels.

A colossal jackpot before which geological survey techniques find themselves very helpless, because it is very difficult to flush out. To overcome this limit, prospectors are therefore turning to another sector: astrophysics. A study published on September 30, 2025 in the Journal of Paleogeography revealed that the Milankovitch cycles (the oscillations of the Earth in the cosmos), would have influenced, in the past, the formation of shale oil deposits in the Sichuan Basin, China. A discovery which would make it possible to locate the most inaccessible deposits using variations in the earth’s ellipse as a guide.

Orbital forcing: the planetary thermostat that created black gold

To understand how variations in Earth’s orbit can fill an oil reservoir, we must analyze the Earth as a thermodynamic system sensitive to the gravitational influences of Jupiter and Saturn. These rotational movements modify the eccentricity of our planet (its elliptical stretching), according to cycles of 100,000 and 405,000 years, called Milankovitch cycles.

These gravitational movements induce what we call a orbital forcingthat is to say a cyclical modification of the quantity of solar energy (insolation) received by the Earth. When the orbit of our planet stretches, the Earth-Sun distance varies in a more or less extreme manner during the year, which alters the seasonal heat balance (ratio between energy received from space/energy returned).

In the Jurassic, this surplus of thermal energy accelerated the hydrological cycle: during eccentricity peaks, the increase in thermal energy absorbed by the oceans and continents intensified evaporation, thus boosting the power of the water cycle.

In addition to a significant rise in temperatures, this period was marked by monsoons of incredible violence in the Sichuan basin, causing significant soil leaching. By flowing towards the paleolakes, this precipitation stripped colossal quantities of essential nutrients, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, from the soil. This spill caused devastating natural eutrophication : an explosion of algal biomass so dense that when it died, it saturated the water column before sinking towards anoxic depths (deprived of oxygen).

It is in this sterile environment, where decomposition is biologically impossible, that organic matter has accumulated to form lithified sludge with a high content of Total Organic Carbon (TOC). This study demonstrated a stunning regularity in this process: the sediments piled up at the metronomic rate of 4.1 centimeters per millennium.

Black gold betrayed by uranium

What does this have to do with oil, you might say? If this ancient astronomical phenomenon interests engineers and industrialists today, it is because they see it as a fantastic opportunity to identify shale oil deposits more easily. Indeed, he left an indelible spy in the rocks: the radioactive signature of uranium.

During phases of anoxia (oxygen deprivation) caused by orbital forcing during the Jurassic period, the uranium present in the water was preferentially fixed in sediments ultra-rich in organic matter. Today, by measuring natural gamma rays inside boreholes, geologists can read this radioactive trace. By making these peaks of radioactivity coincide with models of celestial mechanics, the presence of uranium proves that there is oil in a place X.

Thanks to this correlation, it then becomes possible to establish a temporal identity map of the rocks and to identify the “ Sweet Spots », ultra-oil-rich strata a few tens of centimeters thick. This makes it possible to optimize hydraulic fracture operations (expensive and polluting processes) by exclusively targeting high-yield layers, thus reducing the use of unnecessary drilling and the use of environmentally toxic substances.

To scrape the bottom of the drawers of the fossil era, it is perhaps the most precise method found so far. By finding new deposits in this way, we will be able to give us a little reprieveeven if we know perfectly well that this will be short-lived. Once we have exploited these radioactive signatures to the dregs, theastrogeology will have fired its last cartridge to help the oil industry. Milankovitch’s watch will have finished its turn and all we will have to do is accept that we have devoured in two centuries that the ballet of giant planets took eons to create.