The traditional theory argues that oil is biogenic and only found is certain specific geological areas.
There are several problems with this theory. One is that more and more oil is being found several miles beneath the surface of the Earth well below where dinosaurs roamed and miles from where dead plankton ever sank.
There's a competing theory - ABIOGENIC OIL - it's a minority theory now, but that may soon change. (This is how science progresses: Once plate-tectonics was a minority theory. SO was the meteor explanation for the massive dinosaur extinctions. Both are dominant now.)
WIKI:
The abiogenic hypothesis argues that petroleum was formed from deep carbon deposits, perhaps dating to the formation of the Earth. The presence of methane on Saturn's moon Titan is cited as evidence supporting the formation of hydrocarbons without biology. Supporters of the abiogenic hypothesis suggest that a great deal more petroleum exists on Earth than commonly thought, and that petroleum may originate from carbon-bearing fluids that migrate upward from the mantle.
Although the abiogenic hypothesis was accepted by some geologists in the former Soviet Union, most geologists now consider the biogenic formation of petroleum[1] Although evidence exists for abiogenic formation of methane and hydrocarbon gases within the Earth,[2][3] studies indicate they are not produced in commercially significant quantities (i.e. a median abiogenic hydrocarbon content in extracted hydrocarbon gases of 0.02%).[4] The abiogenic origin of petroleum has also recently been reviewed in detail by Glasby, who raises a number of objections, including that there is no direct evidence to date of abiogenic petroleum (liquid crude oil and long-chain hydrocarbon compounds).[1] scientifically supported.
Although the biogenic theory for petroleum was first proposed by Georg Agricola in the 16th century, various abiogenic hypotheses were proposed in the nineteenth century, most notably by Alexander von Humboldt, the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev and the French chemist Marcellin Berthelot. Since that time, the abiogenic hypotheses have lost ground to the view that petroleum is a fossil fuel.
Abiogenic hypotheses were revived in the last half of the twentieth century by Russian and Ukrainian scientists, and more interest was generated in the West by the publication in 1999 of The Deep Hot Biosphere by Thomas Gold. Gold cited the discovery of thermophile bacteria in the Earth's crust as new support for the postulate that these bacteria could explain the existence of certain biomarkers in extracted petroleum.[5]
MORE:
Certain chemicals found in naturally occurring petroleum contain chemical and structural similarities to compounds found within many living organisms. These include terpenoids, terpenes, pristane, phytane, cholestane, chlorins and porphyrins, which are large, chelating molecules in the same family as heme and chlorophyll. Materials which suggest certain biological processes include tetracyclic diterpane and oleanane.
The presence of these chemicals in crude oil is assumed to be as a result of the inclusion of biological material in the oil. This is predicated upon the theory that these chemicals are released by kerogen during the production of hydrocarbon oils.
However, since the advent of abiogenic hypothesis, the veracity of these assumptions has been called into question and new lines of evidence used to provide alternative explanations. Some are provided by many scientists from around the world including Russia.
AND:
The geological argument for abiogenic oilTHE ABIOGENIC SIDE OF THE "BIOGENIC VERSUS ABIOGENIC DEBATE" HAS A NEW ALLY: THE EXPANDING EARTH THEORY (EXCERPT):Given the known occurrence of methane and the probable catalysis of methane into higher atomic weight hydrocarbon molecules, the abiogenic hypothesis considers the following to be key observations in support;
Incidental evidence
- The serpentinite synthesis, graphite synthesis and spinel catalysation models prove the process is viable [22][27]
- The likelihood that abiogenic oil seeping up from the mantle is trapped beneath sediments which effectively seal mantle-tapping faults [26]
- Mass-balance calculations for supergiant oilfields which argue that the calculated source rock could not have supplied the reservoir with the known accumulation of oil, implying deep recharge (Kudryavtsev, 1951)
The proponents of abiogenic oil use several arguments which draw on a variety of natural phenomena in order to support the hypothesis
- The modelling of some researchers which shows the Earth was accreted at relatively low temperature, thereby perhaps preserving primordial carbon deposits within the mantle, to drive abiogenic hydrocarbon production [49]
- The presence of methane within the gases and fluids of mid-ocean ridge spreadingD centre hydrothermal fields[50]
Persistent Geo-Blunder Discovered: Huge Boost for Oil and Gas Exploration
For decades, an unsuspected geological blunder has limited crucial technical understanding of how, where and why petroleum and natural gas deposits form. Exposing and correcting that vital mistake offer the promise of new insights and potentially vast new energy-resource discoveries.Since the 1930s, the idea of mantle convection has been inextricably rooted in common geological interpretations of the Earth's dynamics. In a paper just published in the March 25, 2010 issue of Current Science, San Diego geophysicist J. Marvin Herndon of Transdyne Corporation discloses a very serious problem with the prevailing concept of convection in the Earth's mantle and reveals the profound implications on oil and gas exploration.
For decades geologists and geophysicists have assumed that convection occurs within the Earth's mantle. But according to Herndon's discovery, Earth-mantle convection is physically impossible. As he explains in his paper, the mantle is compressed by its own weight and the weight of the crust, so that its bottom is about 62% more dense than the top. The negligible amount of thermal expansion that might occur at the bottom, less than 1%, cannot cause bottom-mantle matter to float to the surface or make the mantle top-heavy, necessary conditions for convection.
Herndon's discovery has revolutionary implications for geologists, who have for decades misapplied mathematical convection-justification relationships to the gravity-compressed mantle; such relationships are only valid for incompressible fluids.
Familiar topical names, such as Pangaea, Gondwanaland and Plate Tectonics, will begin to fade into history, replaced by a more correct 21st Century understanding of geology and geodynamics without mantle convection.
In Herndon's view, virtually all major geological activity is the consequence of a single process: Earth-crust fragmentation - splitting the Earth's crust to form new surface area to accommodate decompression-increased planetary volume.
Crustal fragmentation, called rifting, provides all of the crucial components for petroleum-deposit formation: basin, reservoir, source, and seal. Rifting causes the formation of deep basins, as presently occurring in the Afar triangle of Northeastern Africa. Augmented by heat channeled upwards from deep within the Earth, uplift from sub-surface swelling can sequester sea-flooded lands to form halite evaporate deposits, lead to dome formation, and can make elevated land susceptible to erosion processes, thus providing sedimentary material for reservoir rock in-filling of basins. Moreover, crustal fragmentation potentially exposes deep basins to sources of abiotic mantle methane and, although still controversial, methane-derived hydrocarbons.
HERNDON SUMMARIZES PLATE TECTONIC THEORY:
The popularity of plate tectonics arises from its seeming to explain major features of the ocean floor, but popularity is not a measure of scientific correctness. Science is a logical process, not a democratic process.
Plate tectonic theory is based upon the idea that ocean floor, continuously produced at mid-oceanic ridges, as illustrated at left, moves like a conveyer belt, ultimately being “subducted” and re-circulated by assumed convection currents in the mantle, as illustrated at right [3-5].
Indeed, compelling evidence, e.g., seafloor magnetic striations, exists to support the idea of seafloor being continuously produced at mid-oceanic ridges and moving away from the ridges. The magnetic stripes are symmetrical on each side of the ridge and are older in age the greater distance from the ridge. Moreover, ocean floor is observed to plunge downward into oceanic trenches.
BUT...
Herndon ... found a serious problem [6]. Indeed, the critical assumption of mantle convection is truly the Achilles heel of plate tectonics.When a fluid is heated from beneath, it expands becoming lighter, less dense, than the fluid above it. This top-heavy arrangement is unstable, so fluid motions result as the fluid attempts to restore stability. The top-heavy arrangement occurs because the temperature at the bottom is hotter than at the top. This is convection. Not only is the Earth’s mantle not a fluid, but the weight of over-burden rock causes compression within the mantle, which increases with depth. Matter at the bottom of the mantle is about 62% more dense than at the top, as shown in the figure at right. Heating bottom-rock causes a miniscule increase in volume, hence miniscule decrease in density, much, much less than 1%. This is far, far too little to make the "parcel" of bottom-mantle light enough to float to the top, not enough to make the mantle top-heavy; the result is no mantle-convection at all.
Often Earth-mantle convection is (wrongly) "justified" by calculating a high Rayleigh Number. But, as discovered by J. Marvin Herndon, Lord Rayleigh's derivation was based upon constant density and, thus, is not applicable to the Earth's mantle [6].
So, unequivocally, plate tectonics theory is not correct. Why? Because the crucial underlying part is physically impossible, which means that plate tectonics theory is wrong. That might not be surprising as plate tectonics is an incomplete theory, a theory without an energy source to power geodynamic activity.
HE GOES ON:
n 1933, Ott C. Hilgenberg ... published his idea that in the distant past for some unknown reason the Earth was smaller, without ocean basins, and that subsequently the Earth expanded [7,8]. The photo at left shows a series of globes made by Hilgenberg to illustrate his idea. An alternative to plate tectonics theory, Earth expansion theory, as espoused by S. Warren Carey [9, 10] and others, has met with resistance because of the lack of knowledge of an energy source of sufficient magnitude and because it is based upon the idea that Earth expansion occurs mainly along mid-oceanic ridges and thus occurred during the last 180 million years, as the oldest ocean floor is no older than that [11].
... The principal impediment to the idea of Earth expansion has been the lack of knowledge of a mechanism that could provide the necessary energy [13, 14] without departing from the known physical laws of nature [15]. In 1982, Adrian E. Scheidegger [16] stated concisely the prevailing view: "Thus, if expansion on the postulated scale occurred at all, a completely unknown energy source must be found."Recognizing that neither plate tectonics theory nor Earth expansion theory is an adequate description of the dynamics of the Earth as a whole, J. Marvin Herndon proposed a new geodynamic theory, called Whole-Earth Decompression Dynamics [12], which reconciles certain elements of those two seemingly divergent theories into one unified theory of Earth dynamics. Moreover, Herndon disclosed a completely unknown energy source, which follows from fundamental considerations related to planetary formation [17-20], that is sufficient to power geodynamics.
USE THE LINK TO READ HIS THEORY.
HERE IS A SIMPLE YET COMPELLING VIDEO OF WHAT THE EXPANDING EARTH THEORY LOOKS LIKE:
AND HERE IS THE FIRST OF A 14 PART LECTURE ON THE SUBJECT:
I THINK THE THEORY IS INTRIGUING, INF NOT COMPELLING.
IT EXPLAINS A LOT OF THINGS THAT THE CURRENTLY DOMINANT THEORIES DO NOT.
AND IT WOULD MEAN WE ARE NOT GOING TO RUN OUT OF OIL OR GAS.
Reliapundit,
ReplyDeleteYou really should be more careful when you hear about well establish scientific theories being discredited. We do not have any good reason based on this to think that we have an unlimited supply of crude oil.
Based on the Wikipidia article you linked to, it doesn't sound like most geologist are embracing the Abiogenic theory for the origin of petroleum, and in fact it sounds like it was an old theory that was discredited a long time ago.
Also that expanding Earth theory is not new, and its bunk science.
Neal Adams is not even a scientist. He's a pseudoscientist at best.
Neal Adams' Expanding Head, Part 1
Expanding earth my ass
You can do a search and you'll find even more debunking it.
It doesn't look like the fossil fuel theory as you put it has been falsified, and even worse, its not Plate Tectonics that has been debunked, but the Expanding Earth hypothesis put forth in those videos. This a political, not a science blog, but you still should do better research when it comes to scientific claims, especially when they're ones that seem to support what you want to be true. I knew Neal Adams' idea was nonsense when I first heard about it. Posting stuff like this will not help your blog's reputation. If anything it will make the Astute Blogger seem like an unreliable source with anyone who knows a lot about these two subjects.
hi damien.
ReplyDeleteu r a snide snarky asshole who can;t read very well and certainly not as well as he thinks he can.
nowhere do i argue that most scientists currently like the abiotic theory.
but the same can be said of every theory now held sacrosanct.
assholes like you thought the meteor/dinosaur extinction theory was idiotic for a long time, too.
and even plate tectonics was ridiculed for decades.
oil and gas are found at depths where there was never ever any life.
methane abounds on planets with no life.
and another thing:
go fuck yerself.
and another another thing dickhead:
some oil can be biotic and some abiotic: one doesn't rule out the other.
THANKS FOR COMMENTING!
you greasy namelsss asshole.
Reliapundit,
ReplyDeleteFine,
But, you don't have to be rude about it. That curse word, by the way, is only there because, it was in the title of the video. Maybe a should have thought more about posting it here for that reason. Sorry, I wasn't trying to be rude.
You know it wasn't all that long ago that Copernicus was terrified to share his solar system map because of the possibility of being jailed and executed by the church who had, as far as they were concerned...well established theories.
ReplyDeleteAt that time only church officials and church approved scientists were allowed to have any opinions or do any real research. Quite often laboratories and research papers were readied and burned along with the people who dared to have scientific curiosity.