Analysis  /  Feature film  /  Geology
Feature film · Geology

Ground Truth.

How the rock beneath a mine or an oil field was made, and why it still sets the cost curve, in seven minutes.

Key points

Geology sets the limits of every mine and oil field. Capital and policy decide what happens inside them.

  1. 01Oil was made in a few places, at a few times.Six stratigraphic intervals, together a third of the last 540 million years, hold the source rocks for more than 90% of the world’s discovered oil and gas reserves.1 A 2003 census counted 877 giant fields, each with at least 500 million barrels of recoverable oil or gas equivalent.2
  2. 02An orebody is rock that nature enriched many times over.Copper is mined from ore grading about 0.6%, some 200 times its average of 28 parts per million in the upper continental crust.3
  3. 03The rock runs down, and most spending goes to standing still.Without new investment, oil output would fall about 8% a year. Nearly 90% of upstream investment since 2019 has gone to offsetting decline.4
  4. 04Geology is unevenly dealt, and that hands the state a lever.DR Congo mined 73% of the world’s cobalt in 2025, and Indonesia 67% of its nickel.5
Siccar Point, Scotland: red sandstone lying across upturned grey beds 7 min
Illustrative film. Includes NASA and USGS footage and credited photographs.Every figure on screen carries its source.
Where the rock enters the decision

Every ZMK view of an asset starts beneath it.

A valuation inherits the grade, depth and decline the geology dealt. When a deal case assumes more than the rock can give, that is where we look first.

Transaction & Asset Red-Teaming Resource Risk & Governance
Principal to principal.

If the film touches an asset or a decision on your desk, write to us directly.

[email protected]
Sources for the key points
  1. H. D. Klemme and G. F. Ulmishek, “Effective Petroleum Source Rocks of the World: Stratigraphic Distribution and Controlling Depositional Factors”, AAPG Bulletin, vol. 75, no. 12, December 1991, abstract. Link
  2. P. Mann, L. Gahagan and M. B. Gordon, “Tectonic Setting of the World’s Giant Oil and Gas Fields”, AAPG Memoir 78, 2003, abstract. Link
  3. N. T. Arndt, L. Fontboté, J. W. Hedenquist, S. E. Kesler, J. F. H. Thompson and D. G. Wood, “Future Global Mineral Resources”, Geochemical Perspectives, vol. 6, no. 1, April 2017, Table 2.1, p. 18. Link
  4. International Energy Agency, The Implications of Oil and Gas Field Decline Rates, 16 Sep 2025, executive summary. Link
  5. U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, cobalt and nickel chapters, 6 Feb 2026. Link

Links accessed 11 Oct 2026.