I found this–
True? False?
Input from Geodopers, please.
Well, his main claim is faulty, that it’s easier to find gas and oil if you look for plant formations.
The oil well industry took off long before the dinosaur theory arose, and people look for gas and oil in places similar to where they’ve found it before. They also have a pretty hefty miss rate, so there’s lots of data on “unlikely” formations as well.
I’m not a geology buff, but the general phrasing of the article reads more like a scam than I’m used to seeing in a journal. All upside and no downside; few numbers or hard, checkable claims. It feels like they’re blowing smoke. Don’t let them sell you any mineral rights timeshares.
This was “big news” a few years ago with some ex-Nasa scientist promoting it, Thomas Gold??
I did not amount to much if I remember correctly.
The journal article that the cite refers to is a letter to the editor - not a peer reviewed article, for what that’s worth.
Well, all I could get to was the abstract, and what it seems to describe is an experiment in which a methane feedstock was subjected to conditions of heat and pressure that successfully resulted in more complex hydrocarbon molecules being formed. This suggests that some proportion of non-methane oil and gas components could have derived from inorganic processes, rather than from breakdown of biological materials, as is generally accepted to be the case. This is not entirely unreasonable, but one would have to demonstrate that there is abundant methane available in mantle rocks and that the process actually works according to the experimental results. The abstract is rather sketchy on the ‘migration channels’ mentioned in the ScienceDaily article; in fact that article is so atrociously written that it makes the whole thing sound more like the rantings of a crank.
It comes off as bogus on the basis of this alone:
Either the article’s author or Dr. Kutcherov apparently knows nothing about the deposition of sedimentary rocks. I know of no seriously contended theory that oil and gas have ever ‘seeped down’ from surface to great depths. The general theory is that most oil and gas derive from organic deposits (mainly the remains of dead moicroorganisms, such as plankton) laid down in seabed sediments. The precursor chemicals from these organic remains are altered by heat and pressure as additional layers of sediments build over them, eventually resulting in oil and gas. The depth of burial of the hydrocarbon deposits may increase over geologic time, but that’s just because additional sediments are being laid over them.
As far as migration goes, if anything, oil and gas migrating away from the source deposits move upward relative to the source, or at best laterally, as they are less dense than the brine water that makes up the majority of fluid in the pore spaces of rocks. What’s over your head at the moment, rock or air? Which is less dense?
– former instructor and field operator for an oilfield service company
Abiogenic oil, beloved by Russkies and freerepublic readers alike. It is thermodynamically possible to transform methane at 1,000–1,500 K and 2 GPa? Yes. Does this correlate with the overwhelming evidence for biogenic oil (biomarkers, laboratory synthesis using organic rich source rock, etc.) that we pump out of the ground? No. There are some very specific situations where reactions are theoretically possible, but not geologically plausible, or not at any scale. Crude oil, is almost certainly entirely biogenic, and whilst natural gas may have a theoretical abiogenic component of c. 200 ppm by volume, any viable reserve would be unlikely (Jenden et al. 1993). Failing to understand the sedimentary mechanics burying oil reserves in the crust, gives you an idea of how woeful the grasp of geology involved is.
– geology graduate