Does Deep Earth Host Untapped Fuel?

ABCnews.com ^ | January 19, 2006 | Lee Dye

[thoughtomator]

He says it was a slow day on a Friday afternoon when he decided to take some minerals and subject them to enormous pressures and high temperatures.

I have days like that.

[Strategerist]

Actually Petroleum ITSELF, not the rocks around it, contains chemical indications of the diatoms, bacteria, etc. it formed from...

For example:

http://www.stw.nl/projecten/B/bar/bar5275.htm

"Chemical fossils are characteristic compounds found in oils that are derived from specific algae and bacteria, which were abundant during the deposition of the source rock of the oil. Since these organisms, and therefore their characteristic compounds, were only evolving during specific periods in Earth's history, they are used to constrain the age of petroleums. This is of significant benefit for solving exploration and production problems of oil companies, especially when source rocks of oils are not known for instance with deeper buried source rocks. However, the number of useful age-related chemical fossils is still limited, especially in the age-range 0-180 my. Chemical fossils of diatoms may provide useful age-diagnostic compounds since they evolved during that time period but unfortunately little is known about the composition and evolutionary origing of diatom lipids. Therefore, we porpose to grow a wide diversity of extant diatom species and etermine their lipid composition as well as their 18S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) sequences. These sequences will be used to establish relationships between different diatom species."


And again one has to get by the basic problem that the majority of the people eagerly buying into the "oil is not a fossil fuel" theories all seem to believe that stupid mainstream geologists think oil comes from the dead bodies of Brontosauruses...

And also,I suspect, don't even know or understand what plankton or a diatom is.

[CodeToad]

The only people who want us to believe oil will run out are the ecco-terrorists who think we are killing the planet.

[arthurus]

This theory has been advanced by russian scientists as far back as the thirties under Stalin.

this does not reccomend the theory as credible. Remember Lysenko's biology.To leftists reality is a mental construct and the more extreme leftists, those who are in real power and can prevent their "theories" from being rebutted like to engage in reconstruction.

[seastay]

"I expected nothing to happen," he says. "But sure enough, it formed methane. It was a bit of a shock."

Guess he never read his science book where it says this:


"Methane gives Neptune its blue cloud color."

[arthurus]

how do you explain the existence of 'gas giant' planets

Millenia ago the Jupiterians got addicted to beans and cabbage. It was the end of their world.

[tpaine]

-- There is no 'question' whatsoever that methane is formed throughout the solar system by heat & pressure.
-- After all, 'Gas Giant' planets do exist.

Thus the only question remaining is: -- why is that fact ignored when we discuss the formation of hydrocarbons on earth?

There is a vast, vast, vast, vast difference between Methane and the hydrocarbons in petroleum.

So the people that sell hydrocarbons claim. - Isn't that amazing. -- Gold however explains in his book how biological activities can form petroleum from methane, deep in the "hot biosphere" .

Quite the strawman construction there...precisely nobody has ever claimed all methane is biological.

But you fellas claim all petroleum is scarce because it's biological. - A self serving argument when you sell the stuff, no?

[Grateful One]

Earth is hollow with a miniature sun at the center. The entrance is at the north pole, and UFOs come from there.................

You just HAD to let it out, didn't you?

[Physicist]

Those microscopic fossils may well be just "along for the ride."

Quite right. Now, where does the Earth get these particular fossils, 100 miles underground where petroleum is ostensibly produced? Wouldn't most of the (non-biological) petroleum end up in completely different layers, or (more likely) associated with igneous rocks? How is it possible that paleontologists can help to locate oil deposits by looking at the types of fossils, if the fossils are very old, but the petroleum deposits are not?

[trashcanbred]

However, everytime I raise this theory, many here pooh-pooh it.

Just because you say something doesn't mean it is true. This article only suggests that methane could possibly be produced... but to say that all hydrocarbons are created via another process instead of organic means seems to be a stretch of the imagination. Just ask any paleontologist who works for an oil company.

[ChuxsterS]

Inorganic oil & gas ping

[Strategerist]

Quite the amazing coincidence that basically all the oil on earth is found precisely where biological theories of the origin of oil say it will be found. :-)

[stripes1776]

Form the article: "If he was right, it means the finite limits of the resources that power our cities and our factories and our vehicles have been vastly overstated."

This is a terrible sentence. Does it mean there is more than was thought or less? It is completely unclear.

Yes, you are right. If I say that I have $4.00 in my checking account, but there are really $25,000.00 in it, I have understated the limit of my financial resources.

[Robert A Cook PE]

I agree.

See, the difference is in source of hydrocarbons between coal and deep-earth oil products.

Coal clearly (from fossils and plant residue seen in the coal), is from compressed earlier life. Shallow beds, flat beds, sedimentary rock directly it, limited areas: not under the seas or long-lived natural rock.

But oil follows NONE of these "rules" - and actually violates most of them.

It is "trapped" ABOVE salt domes UNDER dense impermeable unbroken rock - as if rising from below. It is found very, very deep: at 3-5 miles depth, which is not uncommon for new wells, oils are found in rock "new" at the time of the Grand Canyon: when little "plant life" was around as a source of the "decaying matter" theory. Oil accumulates and disperses through the rock - and travels long distances unexplainable if its source is flat beds of dead plant/animal matter.

The sheer time involved in getting 5 miles of sediment piled in smooth sheets above plant matter (without that plant matter turning into coal or washing away, seems to preclude plant mass (never dinosaurs, by the way, oil is much too old for that!) as a primary source.

Comets? Possible carbon. Hydrogen ? Not sure? From water in the comets? But somebody has to show me HOW oil is formed from plant matter, and buried that deep under that much ocean floor and deep rock in that short a time, for me to buy it.

Direct from pressurized rock? Maybe. Not buying that yet either.

[Strategerist]

Just ask any paleontologist who works for an oil company.

On threads like these, people are violently allergic to anyone who might actually have any idea of what they're talking about.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Not true: Coal, yes. But not oil. Look at the age of the rock ABOVE the oil.

[Lady Jag]

We have much more than "experts" say.   Period.   It is ignorant and arrogant to think otherwise.

[trashcanbred]

This would be great if it were true but to me it seems to be a pipe dream. Paleontologist use microfossils to determine the probability of oil existing at a particular location. The proof the article points out is rather small.

What I find surprising is how many posters here seem to think this "must be true". If that is the case why do we have oil wells drying up? Why are they not constantly being replentished? Maybe they are but they cannot match the rate at which they are being pumped. Either way, this seems dead wrong.

[tpaine]

Strategerist wrote:

On threads like these, people are violently allergic to anyone who might actually have any idea of what they're talking about.

On threads like these, people have always been violently allergic to anyone who 'argues from authority'; -- claiming that they themselves are the only ones who "actually have any idea of what they're talking about".

[trashcanbred]

On threads like these, people are violently allergic to anyone who might actually have any idea of what they're talking about.

I am no expert... but I took a course in paleontology and it was taught by a petroleum geologist, so he focused the class on microfossil groups like the foraminifera.