Hunt's (1990) interesting discussion of abnormally pressured fluid compartments provides a
mechanism for propagation of such compartments through time and space (rupture of
overpressured compartments followed by cementation by minerals precipitating from the hot
solutions expelled vertically from the rupture), but cannot serve as an explanation for the
original development of overpressuring. The cause or causes for the original overpressuring
are of great interest because of our need to be able to predict the occurrence of such …

The paper by Hunt (1990) is cause for concern. At a time when basic hydrogeological
knowledge and thinking are gaining ground with petroleum geologists in the West (eg, Astie
et al., 1969; Chiarelli, 1973; Ibrahim, 1983; Erdelyi, 1985; Toth and Corbet, 1986;
Vugrinovich, 1988; Wells, 1988), it advocates a model of petroleum generation and
migration based on the" imperviousness of strata," a notion dismissed more than 80 years
ago by Munn (1909) as the"... time-honored delusion."Hunt's (1990) model of" seal-bounded …