I used to invest pretty heavily in the energy sector in general and I learned a lot of the science along the way and I really have no idea what fraction of the

I used to invest pretty heavily in the energy sector in general and I learned a lot of the science along the way and I really have no idea what fraction of the earth's surface has been geologically surveyed. I would imagine if someone wanted to seriously pursue the theory (if they'd be permitted to do so, probably not) the way I'd do it is find "disappointing fields" and look for peculiar correlations between them WRT odd permeability test results. So is that field disappointing because its permeability is really low (frac it!) or is it disappointing because all the geology points to a good salt dome and the permeability is great but there's nothing there? The old fashioned way to explain fields that look good but don't produce is the permeability is so high it all leaked out millennia ago (among other explanations boiling down to "we don't know"). I would think you'd find weirder evidence of tailings piles around solid mines and a lack of open pit mines. That would be easier to find than an oil well. Also I expect there would be really weird patterns in sediment related to mercury and similar waste products. "They" never did leaded gas if there's no lead layer in the sediment, etc. Some of it is sophistry. No civilization beyond monkey tribes could possibly exist 3M years ago because there would be nuclear reactors and space ships laying around everywhere, as though there's no intermediate step between monkey tribes and nuclear reactors. Well, what if they never advanced beyond (fill in the blank with some group that's not very advanced in 2023)? Still centuries beyond a tribe of monkeys, yet culturally interesting none the less. We could detect the industrial revolution from England if it happened in Italy 2000 years previous. But... could we detect the Roman Empire if it happened before in Australia in 4000 BC? or 3M BC? I don't know about that, kind of an open question. If the Roman Empire or similar happened in the USA upper midwest before the mile tall ice sheets scrubbed everything, could we tell today? My educated guess is "no" we could not. It would still be culturally interesting even if no nuclear reactors and space ships were built here 50K years ago. I think it quite likely that bioidentical humans were up to all kinds of nonsense in prehistory that we've never discovered or never could discover. They were as smart as us, and healthier than us, until agriculture was invented.