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To: SeekAndFind

I have heard this before from oilmen, and it makes sense.

It never did make sense to me, a non-oilperson and certainly not a chemist or biologist, that all oil came from multi-million-year-old organic matters ‘sandwiched’ between rock.

How could that happen? The rock would have to form, and that would takes thousands of years, and the organic matter didn’t rot away and disappear in those thousands of years?

By the time the rock formed any organic matter would have been long gone.It also means that oil is continually being made, or generated.


6 posted on 12/20/2009 2:47:12 PM PST by squarebarb
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To: squarebarb

Wells have been drilled to depts of 38,000 ft.

Imagine how high that is when you think “up” instead of “down”. Where the jets fly.

So my question when I read of the well that deep was “How the hell did the dinosaur or plant refuse get down there?

Geologist I am not. The most boring course I ever had in my life, but common sense tells you they would have to dig like mad!!!!


17 posted on 12/20/2009 3:19:33 PM PST by old curmudgeon
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To: squarebarb
have heard this before from oilmen, and it makes sense. It never did make sense to me, a non-oilperson and certainly not a chemist or biologist, that all oil came from multi-million-year-old organic matters ‘sandwiched’ between rock.

How could that happen? The rock would have to form, and that would takes thousands of years, and the organic matter didn’t rot away and disappear in those thousands of years?

By the time the rock formed any organic matter would have been long gone.It also means that oil is continually being made, or generated."

Then why didn't coal "rot away"?

I strongly suspect that some of the of the natural gas [methane] produced commercially did result from abiotic processes. It seems less likely with oil, but possible. What is wildly improbable is that there is an abiotic mechanism that is recharging reservoirs fast enough to make a difference to anyone living, their children, grandchildren etc.

There may be some very deep natural gas deposits [more than 30,000 feet.] If they exist, in order to be commercial, they would need extremely large and productive reservoirs and the costs would still be high. Not likely ... but again possible.

Oil OTOH just isn't found much below 15,000 - 17,000 feet [unlike natural gas.] as the normal heat increase with depth [the geothermal gradient] results in oil cooking down to simpler molecules. Go as deep as you like [and they have for natural gas] but it is almost impossible to find oil by going ultra deep.

35 posted on 12/20/2009 5:02:14 PM PST by R W Reactionairy ("Everyone is entitled to their own opinion ... but not to their own facts" Daniel Patrick Moynihan)
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