New Fossils Suggest Ancient Cat-sized Reptiles in Antarctica

LiveScience.com on Yahoo ^ | 6/7/08 | Jeanna Bryner

[mass55th]

"Yeah, we could call them Ferrets or Minks. Oh wait, the already exist."

We could compromise and call them Finks.

[Dog Gone]

Though there are occasional fossils in coal, it is remarkably fossil free. It also doesn't have the right chemical signature for being of biological origin.

Well, that is news to me. I assume you have a source link for that contention, which I believe would also be news to the rest of the world.

[aruanan]

Well, that is news to me. I assume you have a source link for that contention, which I believe would also be news to the rest of the world.

I'll find it. I may have it on another browser on this or another computer. As far as being news to the rest of the world, 95% of this is accounted for by kids growing up being told that coal was formed by compression of ancient forests in the "forest ->peat->lignite->bituminous->anthracite coal" pathway. Coal, like petroleum, however, and unlike peat, has the wrong chemical footprint to have come from a biological source. There are elements far in excess or in paucity to be explicable in terms of the buried forest theory.

[Dog Gone]

Now you’re saying petroleum has the wrong chemical footprint to have an organic source, too?

[aruanan]

Now you’re saying petroleum has the wrong chemical footprint to have an organic source, too?

Organic just means carbon. This may or may not be of a biogenic source. Most of the carbons/hydrocarbons in the universe are abiogenic. There are two main reasons petroleum is thought to be of biogenic origin: 1. The presence in petroleum of certain molecules that appear to be of a biological origin. But these molecules are also consistent with the presence of deep-dwelling bacteria that live off methane and petroleum (as well as other substrates) that contaminate the petroleum. The underground biomass in the form of bacteria is many times that of the entire surface biomass. This underground biomass was not known in the early days of theorizing of origins of petroleum. 2. The levorotatory nature of petroleum. When molecules are synthesized, they usually are produced as a mix of L and R isomers. Chemicals or molecules produced by living things are mostly L isomers. They rotate light to the left. Petroleum, though, is only slightly L-rotatory, consistent also with its having been contaminated with biogenic products rather than being of biogenic origin itself.

The abiogenic origin of petroleum was supplanted by the biogenic origin based mostly on these two reasons. Recent discoveries, as well as the presence of too many of certain elements and too few of others, indicate that the switch may have been premature.

In an email I got from Thomas Gold a few years ago:

All hydrocarbon reservoirs show excesses of certain elements or molecules, compared with non hydrocarbon bearing areas. Those include helium, vanadium, elemental carbon, nickel, ferrous iron, sulfides, hopanes in the same narrow carbon isotope range, carbonate cements with a large scatter in the same locality of carbon isotope range, iridium and other heavy elements. Many only in trace amounts, but nevertheless much in excess of their average abundance It would seem very strange that plant debris and primordial petroleum would have swept up the same group of substances. Especially helium, which can only have become concentrated by being washed up from a long pathway - therefore from great depth. Even farmers' water wells that contain an excess of methane frequently also contain an excess of helium.
Thomas Gold

[Dog Gone]

I was afraid you’d use Thomas Gold as a source.

To your credit, you didn’t mention Eugene Island as an example.

There’s a reason 95% of shcool children believe that coal and petroleum have organic sources, which is that only 5% believe quackery. That’s a very good percentage.

You can make a very good case that some of the natural gas (methane) comes from sources other than decayed organic matter which was deposited.

Not most of it, but certainly some of it.

The same can’t be true of petroleum, and it definitely is not true of coal.

The reason some people are resistant to natural organic sources of hydrocarbons and coal is, that despite all the evidence, it doesn’t fit into a young earth model.

Fair enough, it doesn’t. But if you let your model predetermine your facts, that’s not scientific in any way.

I have no desire to “win” the discussion with you. I just wanted to know where you got your information.

[Arthur McGowan]

If it comes from garbage on the ocean floor that gets folded under at the edges of the continents, then the supply is still endless.

[Balding_Eagle]

Nobody is arguing that oil comes from dead dinosaurs or other reptiles.

Yeah, settled question.

[UCANSEE2]

I think part of the problem is that science tries to establish ‘one’ source for coal, or oil.

There are many different types of coal, and oil.

The reason for that is that they were made from different ‘things’, and different ‘processes’.

All life on Earth is carbon based, and all things ‘return’ to the Earth.

Coal may be formed by the layering of dead animals and plants, after being subjected to heat and pressure.

It is also likely that a stratifying process may take place deeper in the Earth, where elements are subject to unimaginable pressure and temperature.

So, oil, and coal, may come from both sources.

We just don’t know enough about the Earth, to say for sure.

If we did know for sure, then finding it would be a lot more predictable.

(just my thoughts. Not expecting anyone to agree)

[Dog Gone]

If it comes from garbage on the ocean floor that gets folded under at the edges of the continents, then the supply is still endless.

Sort of. If we're using it faster than it can be made, and we are, there's a problem.

[Dog Gone]

It’s pretty well understood that coal is formed from the carboniferous forests that existed onshore. We don’t find coal beds that are formed in marine environments ever.

Oil is bit trickier, but it’s nearly 100% marine. The reason it’s trickier is that oil is not usually found in the sediments where it was formed, but has migrated toward the surface to a completely different rock formation which has a seal above it.

Coal can’t do that.

[SunkenCiv]

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[Grizzled Bear]

They found some holes, and the only logical conclusion is that they must have been made by this thing.

The holes were made by ancient prehistoric post hole diggers, most likely for telephone poles.

The diggers were 345 feet tall, lived in trees and ate bacon.

[Philo-Junius]

“Reptiles at the Mountains of Madness”

[Arthur McGowan]

I’m not so sure. The proven reserves of oil have never been more than a few years’ supply—because nobody is going to invest what it would take to PROVE a, e.g., 500-years’ supply.

[Dog Gone]

True. Nobody in their right mind would invest money hoping to get it back in 500 years.

[aruanan]

The same can’t be true of petroleum, and it definitely is not true of coal.

The reason some people are resistant to natural organic sources of hydrocarbons and coal is, that despite all the evidence [sic], it doesn’t fit into a young earth model.

Fair enough, it doesn’t. But if you let your model predetermine your facts, that’s not scientific in any way.

I have no desire to “win” the discussion with you. I just wanted to know where you got your information.

Looks as though you've had a lot of erroneous assumptions. The abiogenic origin of petroleum was one of the early major theories. It had nothing to do with a belief in a so-called "young earth." It had sought to explain the origin of petroleum in terms of what was actually observed rather than, as later happened, trying to make it fit a particular earth history model.

Besides, you don't have to be "afraid" of Thomas Gold as a source. He's had quite a good track record of being correct where others in particular fields had themselves been unable to see reality because of the assumptions/current dogma of their fields. In the matter of the origins of petroleum and coal, he had been revisiting what had already had been almost a century of research in the field.