another one from skeptics
Eva
...
>These observations are well born out in the following article about
>scientific heretics and particularly Thomas Gold, because he generated new
>data on the origins of oil and gas and geophysicists are not rejecting the
>conventional theory but Gold's data. Gold is an astrophysicist with
>From the sci.chem FAQ:
The generally-accepted origin of crude oil is from plant life up to 3
billion years ago, but predominantly from 100 to 600 million years ago [1].
"Dead vegetarian dino dinner" is more correct than "dead dinos".
The molecular structure of the hydrocarbons and other compounds present
in fossil fuels can be linked to the leaf waxes and other plant molecules of
marine and terrestrial plants believed to exist during that era. There are
various biogenic marker chemicals such as isoprenoids from terpenes,
porphyrins and aromatics from natural pigments, pristane and phytane from
the hydrolysis of chlorophyll, and normal alkanes from waxes, whose size
and shape can not be explained by known geological processes [2]. The
presence of optical activity and the carbon isotopic ratios also indicate a
biological origin [3]. There is another hypothesis that suggests crude oil
is derived from methane from the earth's interior. The current main
proponent of this abiotic theory is Thomas Gold, however abiotic and
extraterrestrial origins for fossil fuels were also considered at the turn
of the century, and were discarded then. A large amount of additional
evidence for the biological origin of crude oil has accumulated, however
Professor Gold still actively promotes his theory worldwide, even though
it does not account for the location and composition of all crude oils.
If you want the bracketed references, look the FAQ up yourself :-). I only
got Part 6 via Deja News, and my ISP is having a go-slow at present.
Here's another hit from Deja News:
Re: Source of oil
Author: Mark J. Mihalasky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 1997/07/18
Forum: sci.geo.geology
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Cliff Brandon <"[EMAIL PROTECTED]"@utw.com> wrote:
>rossb@*spam, begone*lightspeed.net wrote:
>>
>> >John Hernlund wrote:
>> >
>> >> Hey Y'all,
>> >> A chemist asked me the other day about some kind of theory on the
>> >> origin of oil in the Earth.
>> (snip)
>>
>>
>> Ross Brunetti
>
>I seem to recall (Gold - mid 80's?) speculated that the 'carbon'
>component of the world's oil could be accounted for by it's proportion
>in condritic metorites.
<snip>
I think the above post may be referring to Thomas Gold, a professor
of astronomy at Cornell University (or at least he was as of 1990).
His ideas on the origin of oil and gas are rather unconventional.
Essentially, Gold believes in a "non-biogenic" origin for oil and
gas, and that the hydrocarbons reserviors collected in the
near-surface crust have seeped up 40 km or more from the Earth's
mantle, where they were deposited as the planet formed. In an
attempt to verify his hypothesis, he drilled into a granite dome
in Sweden, known as the Siljan Ring.
Here is list of articles detailing his theories ane efforts:
Osborne, D., 1986, The origin of petroleum: The Atlantic Monthly,
February (no. 2?), pp. 39-54. (this is a summary article of
Gold's ideas presented in layman's terms)
Kerr, R. A., 1990, When a radical experiment goes bust: Science,
v. 247, pp. 1177-1179.
Shirley, K., post-1990, Drilling stops short of the target--Answers
remain elusive at Siljan: AAPG Explorer... (sorry, that's all
I have on this one, but it is certainly worth tracking down)
Haggin, J., 1986, Drilling project in Sweden will test theory of
abiogenic hydrocarbons: C&EN, July 21, pp. 21-26... (another
incomplete reference passed on to me... I'm not sure what
"C&EN" is, but based on the person who gave it to me, it could
be an engineering journal)
In short, funds for the drilling project ran out just before
intersecting the deepest of 4 sub-horizontal seismic reflection
intervals detected in the granite bedrock of the Siljan ring
area. These intervals were initially thought to be permeable
fracture zones (possibly containing hydrocarbons), but turned out
to be diabase/diorite sills, which most likely had intruded into
the more permeable rock. The presence of gas was noted
throughout much of the drilling (thought the measurement
techniques were somewhat dubious). Elevated amounts of
hydrocarbons, though still extremely low and well below
commercial amounts, were detected in the sill/fracture zones.
The 4th seismic reflection interval was the strongest reflector,
suggesting that it might have considerably more hydrocarbons than
the previous three. The sill/fracture zone gasses are
predominantly methane with almost no unsaturated hydrocarbons,
and are isotopically heavy. The firm analyzing the gasses has
suggested that the gas is of a non-biogenic origin. It seems
that if you are of Gold's school of thought, there is positive
proof (albeit minor) for non-biogenic oil. Those not so
optimistic (i.e.-- Kerr's review) see the results Gold's project
as final nail in the coffin.
But this is old news... derived from the references above. I
have not heard of anything recently. I have run across a couple
of pieces that are food for thought however:
Geotimes, 1995, Lower mantle may harbor hydrogen: February, p. 8.
Kolberg, R., 1989, Oil deposits may form faster than scientists believed:
Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 19, p. C7... this newspaper article refers
to a study published by Berndt Simoneit of Oregon State University
and Borys Didyk of Concon Petroleum in "Nature".
That's about all I know... just an idle interest. I am by no
means an expert in this area... but, certainly the super-deep
(12 km) Kola hole in the Proterozoic and Archean rocks of the
Baltic Shield has indicated that there is much more happening at
depth than we previously thought.
Mark.
-mjm... delete x's in email address to reply.
<end post>
There are various other posts which all say that the statement "At
considerable depth they found both oil and methane" takes serious liberties
with the truth. Apparently some young-earth creationists love Gold's
theories, because they clearly demonstrate that geology is All Wrong :-).
--
Daniel Rutter - DNRC Gadget Wrangler
http://www.fromorbit.com/drutter/
Visit http://www.dansdata.com/!
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
