There isn't much that is layman oriented. You can find quite a number of geology papers on crude oil finds in Nevada on Google. In Nevada, gold and oil are often intertwined, as they are both associated with the hydrothermal systems there. In fact, many abandoned gold mines will slowly backfill with crude seeping out of the shaft walls. Most people aren't even aware that Nevada has oil, though its most productive oil well has produced over 20 million barrels so far. What is special about Nevada crude, is that it is found in extremely young geological formations, too young to even have crude by conventional theory.
The specific association of crude oil formation and stable hydrothermal systems was largely discovered in the 1990s. The short story: With the discovery of the massive Carlin trend gold deposit in Nevada by a couple research geologists, an old extinct hydrothermal structure, some significant changes in theory took place as to where and how gold deposits formed. A causal factor that had been missed was long and strong hydrothermal activity in the local geology, if not currently, at one time in the past. In Nevada, you can't take a leak without hitting a hydrothermal system or volcanic gas vent -- it is a major part of the geology -- but nobody ever takes core samples from active hydrothermal beds because it eats coring rigs alive and is therefore extremely expensive. Many of the active hydrothermal systems in Nevada are very old, plenty long for gold deposits to form. Consequently, in the 1990s many of the gold prospecting companies started coring active hydrothermal beds looking for gold deposits; by their new models there should be dozens of rich new deposits in the active hydrothermal beds that had never been discovered because it had always been either too dangerous or too expensive to look in those places without good reason to do so. Most of the classic ultra-rich gold fields of Nevada are on the peripheries of major active hydrothermal systems.
As these companies started coring the actual hydrothermal beds and hot springs in the old gold fields, they discovered something else. They pulled up crude oil as often as they pulled up gold. That bits of crude were scattered all over Nevada was well-known, but they did not expect to find it in the hydrothermal beds, and certainly not in the fashion in which they were finding it. The major hot spring near my ranch in Nevada is one of the many places where they pulled up gobs of crude when coring for gold.
The current theory is that the unusual catalytic mineralogy of these regions, combined with the very hot and active hydrothermal systems providing energy and transport, is actively manufacturing crude oil and all manner of complex organic carbon compounds. It isn't a commercially viable source for crude, but it gives a fair amount of insight into the speed and nature of crude formation. On the other hand, there are a bunch of new commercial gold deposits pending in Nevada (already one of the world's major gold exporting regions) as a result of studying hydrothermal systems.