by billie jean 43 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Where DID the oil come from then?
It is almost entirely from plant organisms. Plankton and algae being the primary sources. I think the confusion stems from the term "fossil fuel". People hear "fossil" and think dinosaurs. "Fossil" simply means "having been dug up."
The abiogenic theory for the origin of oil lacks scientific support; all oil reserves ever tapped are biogenic in origin.
The abiogenic theory for the origin of oil lacks scientific support; all oil reserves ever tapped are biogenic in origin.
Bullcrap. You obviously haven't read anything on the subject other than that which supports biological origins.
Try this for starters:
http://www.gasresources.net/Introduction.htm
You can google it as well for additional proof that this, indeed, is the way Russia, Ukraine, etc ARE producing their oil- deep well technology, not tapping in to "reservoirs". Lab experiments have proven that placing rock under high pressure results in generation of petrochemicals.
BA- Helping the blind to see.
BA
I've read a good deal about abiogenic oil. All current oil resources appear to have a biotic origin.
I remain unconvinced.
Lab experiments have proven that placing rock under high pressure results in generation of petrochemicals.
What kind of rock? You can't get hydrocarbons without carbon (or hydrogen either).
BTS
probably a safe bet that carbon-based substances are produced by other carbon-based substances (like decaying plants), not by substances that contain no carbon (most rocks). Although some minerals do contain carbon.
BA
I've read a good deal about abiogenic oil. All current oil resources appear to have a biotic origin.
I remain unconvinced.
BTS
Then I may assume you've read this? If so, we'll agree to disagree then:
Dismissal of the Claims of a Biological Connection for Natural Petroleum.
http://www.gasresources.net/DisposalBioClaims.htm
More reading on the subject of abiotic oil (for those interested):
The Evolution of Multicomponent Systems at High Pressures: VI.
The Thermodynamic Stability of the Hydrogen-Carbon System:
The Genesis of Hydrocarbons and the Origin of Petroleum.
http://www.gasresources.net/AlkaneGenesis.htm
BA- Enjoy!PS- FYI, The publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of an article formally enunciating the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins and demonstrating the high-pressure genesis of petroleum would seem to favor the science behind this, rather than biotic origins.
But of course the dinosaurs did not eat meat." (Lived before the flood)
We just went to a national park where a triassic phytosaur (crocodile-like reptile) fossil of a was on display which bore a big tooth gash from another of its kind. The park ranger showed us a fossilized tooth that fit right into the gash. This animal came before the heyday of the dinosaurs.
Really, dinosaurs are a small piece of the pie when it comes to extinct species. It's estimated 1-4 billion species of plant and animal life have lived on the earth, with only 50 million living today.
That means that only 1 - 5 percent of all life forms that have existed on the earth are alive today.
even though bones of other dinosaurs have been found fossilized inside the stomachs of other dinosaurs!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do you dare question the wisdom of Jehober? Obviously the smaller dinosaur crawled inside the digestive cavity of the larger dino after it had died, maybe to shelter from some rain. Then it had a heart attack from too many cheeseburgers - oh wait, they didn't eat meat - too many veggieburgers, so it died as well and they both got fossilized together.
You can't get hydrocarbons without carbon (or hydrogen either).
Lol. One possible formation of inorganic oil is by Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis. This process occurs when mantle peridotite is hydrolysed becoming serpentinite, releasing hydrogen. In the presence of catalyst transition metals (e.g. Fe, Ni), hydrogen reacts with carbon dioxide from carbonate rocks and results in n-alkanes (hydrocarbons). If you google it, you'll find that results have been replicated in labs, much like replication of diamandoids from placing rock under extreme heat and presure. Numerous other findings weigh more favorably on abiotic origins (there are loads of hydrocarbons on Saturn's moon, "Titan", as well as interstellar gas clouds, in the atmospheres (as methane, CH4) of the superior planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and in various forms on several moons of these planets ( additionally, a significant percentage of the asteroids exhibit certain optical reflective properties of tar, as was also measured in the core of Comet Halley), replenishment of "exhausted" oil wells, the fact that the Second Law of Thermodyamics prohibits spontaneous generation of hydrocarbons heavier than methane at low pressures, etc, etc, etc,) By way of background, and to bring anyone who wishes up to date, the controversy surrounding the origins of petroleum is by no means dead. Discoveries and research continue to favor abiotic origins, or, in the very least, cast serious doubt on biotic origins.
The following is an excerpt from http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/peak_oil/peak_oil_is_a_known_fraud.htm
"The notion that oil is a 'fossil fuel' was first proposed by Russian scholar Mikhailo Lomonosov in 1757. Lomonosov's rudimentary hypothesis, based on the limited base of scientific knowledge that existed at the time, and on his own simple observations, was that "Rock oil originates as tiny bodies of animals buried in the sediments which, under the influence of increased temperature and pressure acting during an unimaginably long period of time, transform into rock oil."
Two and a half centuries later, Lomonosov's theory remains as it was in 1757 -- an unproved, and almost entirely speculative, hypothesis. Returning once again to the Wall Street Journal, we find that, "Although the world has been drilling for oil for generations, little is known about the nature of the resource or the underground activities that led to its creation." A paragraph in the Encyclopedia Britannica concerning the origins of oil ends thusly: "In spite of the great amount of scientific research ... there remain many unresolved questions regarding its origins."
Does that not seem a little odd? We are talking here, after all, about a resource that, by all accounts, plays a crucial role in a vast array of human endeavors (by one published account, petroleum is a raw ingredient in some 70,000 manufactured products, including medicines, synthetic fabrics, fertilizers, paints and varnishes, acrylics, plastics, and cosmetics). By many accounts, the very survival of the human race is entirely dependent on the availability of petroleum. And yet we know almost nothing about this most life-sustaining of the earth's resources. And even though, by some shrill accounts, the well is about to run dry, no one seems to be overly concerned with understanding the nature and origins of so-called 'fossil fuels.' We are, rather, content with continuing to embrace an unproved 18th century theory that, if subjected to any sort of logical analysis, seems ludicrous.
On September 26, 1995, the New York Times ran an article headlined "Geochemist Says Oil Fields May Be Refilled Naturally." Penned by Malcolm W. Browne, the piece appeared on page C1.
Could it be that many of the world's oil fields are refilling themselves at nearly the same rate they are being drained by an energy hungry world? A geochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts ... Dr. Jean K. Whelan ... infers that oil is moving in quite rapid spurts from great depths to reservoirs closer to the surface. Skeptics of Dr. Whelan's hypothesis ... say her explanation remains to be proved ...
Discovered in 1972, an oil reservoir some 6,000 feet beneath Eugene Island 330 [not actually an island, but a patch of sea floor in the Gulf of Mexico] is one of the world's most productive oil sources ... Eugene Island 330 is remarkable for another reason: it's estimated reserves have declined much less than experts had predicted on the basis of its production rate.
"It could be," Dr. Whelan said, "that at some sites, particularly where there is a lot of faulting in the rock, a reservoir from which oil is being pumped might be a steady-state system -- one that is replenished by deeper reserves as fast as oil is pumped out" ...
The discovery that oil seepage is continuous and extensive from many ocean vents lying above fault zones has convinced many scientists that oil is making its way up through the faults from much deeper deposits ...
A recent report from the Department of Energy Task Force on Strategic Energy Research and Development concluded from the Woods Hole project that "there new data and interpretations strongly suggest that the oil and gas in the Eugene Island field could be treated as a steady-state rather than a fixed resource."
The report added, "Preliminary analysis also suggest that similar phenomena may be taking place in other producing areas, including the deep-water Gulf of Mexico and the Alaskan North Slope" ...There is much evidence that deep reserves of hydrocarbon fuels remain to be tapped.
This compelling article raised a number of questions, including: how did all those piles of dinosaur carcasses end up thousands of feet beneath the earth's surface? How do finite reservoirs of dinosaur goo become "steady-state" resources? And how does the fossil fuel theory explain the continuous, spontaneous venting of gas and oil?
The Eugene Island story was revisited by the media three-and-a-half years later, by the Wall Street Journal (Christopher Cooper "Odd Reservoir Off Louisiana Prods Oil Experts to Seek a Deeper Meaning," Wall Street Journal, April 16, 1999).(http://www.oralchelation.com/faq/wsj4.htm )
Something mysterious is going on at Eugene Island 330. Production at the oil field, deep in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, was supposed to have declined years ago. And for a while. it behaved like any normal field: Following its 1973 discovery, Eugene Island 330's output peaked at about 15,000 barrels a day. By 1989, production had slowed to about 4,000 barrels a day. Then suddenly -- some say almost inexplicably -- Eugene Island's fortunes reversed. The field, operated by PennzEnergy Co., is now producing 13,000 barrels a day, and probable reserves have rocketed to more than 400 million barrels from 60 million. Stranger still, scientists studying the field say the crude coming out of the pipe is of a geological age quite different from the oil that gushed 10 years ago.
[It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the oil reservoir at Eugene Island is rapidly refilling itself from "some continuous source miles below the earth's surface." In support of this surmise, analysis of seismic records revealed a deep fault which "was gushing oil like a garden hose."
The deep-seated oil source at Eugene Island strongly supports T. Gold's theory about The Deep Hot Biosphere. Gold holds:
"that oil is actually a renewable, primordial syrup continually manufactured by the earth under ultrahot conditions and tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward the surface, it is attacked by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating back to the dinosaurs."
The apparent deep-seated oil source at Eugene Island and Gold's ideas make petroleum engineers wonder about a similar situation at the seemingly inexhaustible oil fields of the Middle East.
"The Middle East has more than doubled its reserves in the past 20 years, despite half a century of intense exploitation and relatively few new discoveries. It would take a pretty big pile of dead dinosaurs and prehistoric plants to account for the estimated 660 billion barrels of oil in the region, notes Norman Hyne, a professor at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma. "Off the-wall theories often turn out to be right," he says."
(Cooper, Christopher; "It's No Crude Joke: This Oil Field Grows Even as It's Tapped," Wall Street Journal, April 16, 1999. Cr. C. Casale.)]
All of which has led some scientists to a radical theory: Eugene Island is rapidly refilling itself, perhaps from some continuous source miles below the Earth's surface. That, they say, raises the tantalizing possibility that oil may not be the limited resource it is assumed to be.
... Jean Whelan, a geochemist and senior researcher from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts ... says, "I believe there is a huge system of oil just migrating" deep underground.
... About 80 miles off the Louisiana coast, the underwater landscape surrounding Eugene Island is otherworldly, cut with deep fissures and faults that spontaneously belch gas and oil.
So now we are talking about a huge system of migrating dinosaur goo that is miles beneath the Earth's surface! Those dinosaurs were rather crafty, weren't they? Exactly three years later (to the day), the media once again paid a visit to the Gulf of Mexico. This time, it was Newsday that filed the report (Robert Cooke "Oil Field's Free Refill," Newsday, April 19, 2002). http://csf.colorado.edu/forums/pkt/2002II/msg00071.html
Deep underwater, and deeper underground, scientists see surprising hints that gas and oil deposits can be replenished, filling up again, sometimes rapidly.
Although it sounds too good to be true, increasing evidence from the Gulf of Mexico suggests that some old oil fields are being refilled by petroleum surging up from deep below, scientists report. That may mean that current estimates of oil and gas abundance are far too low.
... chemical oceanographer Mahlon "Chuck" Kennicutt [said] "They are refilling as we speak. But whether this is a worldwide phenomenon, we don't know" ...
Kennicutt, a faculty member at Texas A&M University, said it is now clear that gas and oil are coming into the known reservoirs very rapidly in terms of geologic time. The inflow of new gas, and some oil, has been detectable in as little as three to 10 years. In the past, it was not suspected that oil fields can refill because it was assumed that oil was formed in place, or nearby, rather than far below.
According to marine geologist Harry Roberts, at Louisiana State University ... "You have a very leaky fault system that does allow it (petroleum) to migrate in. It's directly connected to an oil and gas generating system at great depth."
... "There already appears to be a large body of evidence consistent with ... oil and gas generation and migration on very short time scales in many areas globally" [Jean Whelan] wrote in the journal Sea Technology ...
Analysis of the ancient oil that seems to be coming up from deep below in the Gulf of Mexico suggests that the flow of new oil "is coming from deeper, hotter [sediment] formations" and is not simply a lateral inflow from the old deposits that surround existing oil fields, [Whelan] said.
Now I'm really starting to get confused. Can someone please walk me through this? What exactly is an "oil and gas generating system"? And how does such a system generate oil "on very short time scales"? Is someone down there right now, even as I type these words, fork-lifting dinosaur carcasses into some gigantic cauldron to cook up a fresh batch of oil?
Desperate for answers to such perplexing questions, I turned for advice to Mr. Peak Oil himself, Michael Ruppert, and this is what I found: "oil ... is the result of climactic conditions that have existed at only one time in the earth's 4.5 billion year history." I'm guessing that that "one time" - that one golden window of opportunity to get just the right mix of dinosaur stew - isn't the present time, so it doesn't seem quite right, to me at least, that oil is being generated right now.
In June 2003, Geotimes paid a visit to the Gulf of Mexico ("Raining Hydrocarbons in the Gulf"), and the story grew yet more compelling. http://www.geotimes.org/june03/NN_gulf.html
Below the Gulf of Mexico, hydrocarbons flow upward through an intricate network of conduits and reservoirs ... and this is all happening now, not millions and millions of years ago, says Larry Cathles, a chemical geologist at Cornell University.
"We're dealing with this giant flow-through system where the hydrocarbons are generating now, moving through the overlying strata now, building the reservoirs now and spilling out into the ocean now," Cathles says.
... Cathles and his team estimate that in a study area of about 9,600 square miles off the coast of Louisiana [including Eugene Island 330], source rocks a dozen kilometers [roughly seven miles] down have generated as much as 184 billion tons of oil and gas -- about 1,000 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent. "That's 30 percent more than we humans have consumed over the entire petroleum era," Cathles say. "And that's just this one little postage stamp area; if this is going on worldwide, then there's a lot of hydrocarbons venting out."
Dry oil wells spontaneously refilling? Oil generation and migration systems? Massive oil reserves miles beneath the earth's surface? Spontaneous venting of enormous volumes of gas and oil? (Roberts noted that - and this isn't really going to please the environmentalists, but I'm just reporting the facts, ma'am - "natural seepage" in areas like the Gulf of Mexico "far exceeds anything that gets spilled" by the oil industry. And those natural emissions have been pumped into our oceans since long before there was an oil industry.)
The all too obvious question here is: how is any of that explained by a theory that holds that oil and gas are 'fossil fuels' created in finite quantities through a unique geological process that occurred millions of years ago?
Why do we insist on retaining an antiquated theory that is so obviously contradicted by readily observable phenomena? Is the advancement of the sciences not based on formulating a hypothesis, and then testing that hypothesis? And if the hypothesis fails to account for the available data, is it not customary to either modify that hypothesis or formulate a new hypothesis -- rather than, say, clinging to the same discredited hypothesis for 250 years?
In August 2002, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a study authored by J.F. Kenney, V.A. Kutchenov, N.A. Bendeliani and V.A. Alekseev. The authors argued, quite compellingly, that oil is not created from organic compounds at the temperatures and pressures found close to the surface of the earth, but rather is created from inorganic compounds at the extreme temperatures and pressures present only near the core of the earth. http://www.gasresources.net/index.htm
As Geotimes noted ("Inorganic Origin of Oil: Much Ado About Nothing?," Geotimes, November 2002), the journal "published the paper at the request of Academy member Howard Reiss, a chemical physicist at the University of California at Los Angeles. As per the PNAS guidelines for members communicating papers, Reiss obtained reviews of the paper from at least two referees from different institutions (not affiliated with the authors) and shepherded the report through revisions." http://www.geotimes.org/nov02/NN_oil.html
I mention that because I happened to read something that Michael Ruppert wrote recently that seems pertinent: "In real life, it is called 'the proof is in the pudding.' In scientific circles, it is called peer review, and it usually involves having your research published in a peer-reviewed journal. It is an often-frustrating process, but peer-reviewed articles ensure the validity of science." http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/052703_9_questions.html
It would seem then that we can safely conclude that what Kenney, et. al. have presented is valid science, since it definitely was published in a peer-reviewed journal. And what that valid science says, quite clearly, is that petroleum is not by any stretch of the imagination a finite resource, or a 'fossil fuel,' but is in fact a resource that is continuously generated by natural processes deep within the planet.
Geotimes also noted that the research paper "examined thermodynamic arguments that say methane is the only organic hydrocarbon to exist within Earth's crust." Indeed, utilizing the laws of modern thermodynamics, the authors constructed a mathematical model that proves that oil can not form under the conditions dictated by the 'fossil fuel' theory.
BA- Remain close-minded, or open to learning new things? Your choice.
PS- More good reading on the subject:
http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2004/September/20040914120334lcnirellep0.7720453.html
http://neveryetmelted.com/index.php/science-article-supports-abiogenic-oil/
A lot of interesting questions are raised by this article, as well:
http://thomasbrown.org/EndofFossilFuels/End_Fossil_Fuels.html
And here's an excerpt from the article above, which relates very clearly to what I believe is the original intent of ths thread:
"But beyond curious and into the really weird we must consider some of the more bizarre objects which have been discovered in coal. Coins and spoons, stone walls and ancient mine tunnels, all have been reported from ancient coal beds. While stone walls and tunnels can be written off as "natural" formations, this is not so easy with the manufactured metal artefacts. A gold chain was found in a lump of Carboniferous coal by Mrs S.W. Culp of Morrisonville, Illinois in June of 1891. Whilst breaking up coal for heating Mrs Culp discovered the chain still partially imbedded in the coal chunk she had just broken. According to standard dating of geological strata, the chain is approximately 300 million years old. An iron cup was found in coal by an electric plant worker in Arkansas in 1912, the coal having come from Oklahoma and being dated at about 312 million years ago. These dates are vastly previous to any accepted human occupation of this planet--dinosaurs had yet to walk the earth--yet fully human remains come from related strata! In 1862 in Macoupin County, Illinois, human male bones were discovered in a slate covered coal bed 90 feet underground. The bones were crusted with a carbonaceous deposit which was easily scraped away to reveal white bone underneath. A similar skeleton found in a coal bed in Leicestershire, England, was reported in 1829. But people didn't exist when the coal was being formed, so you will not learn of these anomalies in school or encyclopaedia, yet."
Hi PrimateDave, hope all is well.
Sorry it took me this long but this is your answer:
The Cenozoic, is the most recent of the three classic geological eras and covers the period from 65.5 million years ago to the present.
The Cenozoic is the age of new life. During the Cenozoic, mammals diverged from a few small, simple, generalized forms into a diverse collection of terrestrial, marine, and flying animals. The Cenozoic is just as much the age of savannas, or the age of co-dependent flowering plants and insects. Birds also evolved substantially in the Cenozoic.
Take Care,
Ismael
