Third, time is needed for this transformation to work. And fourth, time is needed for oil and gas to migrate and collect in suitable reservoirs. The first two stages, at least, are assumed to take place over a period of several million years. Dating of source rocks by conventional geological methods is supposed to reinforce the idea of an ancient origin for most oil deposits. However, various creation scientists have addressed certain aspects of petroleum geology from the perspective of a young Earth and a global Flood.
Some scientists see the quantity of oil as a real problem for the young-Earth model.
In other words, there is not enough organic matter to make all the world's known oil reserves in a single, short-lived catastrophic Flood. To overcome this perceived difficulty, Morton proposes an inorganic origin for oil. Unfortunately, while his arguments are interesting, his model is based on Thomas Gold's methane out-gassing idea. As we have already seen, Gold's model is now suffering from a severe lack of credibility. Nonetheless, most of the evidence points toward a primarily organic origin.