Fair warning, this question is inspired by the 1970s King Kong remake. Anyway, there’s a scene where geologist Jeff Bridges is testing this substance on Kong Island or whatever and says something about how in a million years it’ll be oil. Is that idea BS or is there “pre-oil” that’s developing into oil right now?
Its correct, but bear in mind how many millions of years it took to create the oil that we have now. Estimates on peak production range from 2005 to 2037. I don’t think waiting around for the new stuff to form is a viable option.
So where is this pre-oil and when will it be ready?
Kong Island, in about a million years. GOSH
I think the peat bogs described in The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle are a form of “pre-oil.”
I thought Peat was pre-coal. Does it depend n climate conditions? IOW, will certain conditions lead it to become coal while different conditions lead peat to become oil?
As I understand it, coal is from vegetable matter - you can see some impressions of trees in coal seams today. Peat would be “pre-coal”.
The leading biogenic(*) theory for oil I believe posits that it comes from plankton on the seafloor. If there is any “pre-oil”, it’s likely buried in silt on the abyssal plains of the oceans.
*Leaving aside the controversial abiogenic theories that have been put forward recently.
IIRC (this is from memory)
Oil is formed from organic materials in large areas of rock, buried deep. It doesn’t collect in large deposits until it the heat and pressure have turned it into a liquid, which then rises in the rock layers until it hits a unpermiable layer, like a salt dome. There, it pools and is available to be drilled, pumped and finally power a Hummer H2 to the mall.
Coal and oil are generally from very different sources. Coal is easily seen to be from organic material, starting with woody/vegetable material which forms peat/peat-like substances, then lignite coal, then sub-bituminous, bituminous, and finally anthracite. This process is often called the “coalification process”, and in general results in a steady decrease in dry, mineral matter-free volatile matter and an increase in fixed carbon content (purists note the emphasis on “dry, mineral matter-free”, as anthracite need not be a good quality coal, see Korea, China, and Spain for examples of poor quality anthracite).
As has been noted, coal often clearly contains evidence of its heritage within it - fossils of leaves, twigs, branches, and even whole stumps and logs have been found within beds. This of course is often used to support a “great flood” theory of coal bed production, which has some popularity among creationists.
Oil and natural gas, on the other hand, form by processes which are not quite as well understood, which is one reason abiogenic theories are not only popular in many circles, they are quite hard to disprove. Biogenic theories follow that biomass ends up being buried (possibly undersea, possibly on land) and as pressure increases and time goes on, the matter is broken down into bitumens (heavy hydrocarbons) and kerogens (lighter ones). Further breakdown and separation of lighter and heavier hydrocarbons leads to oil deposits and collections of methane and other light gases, thus natural gas deposits.
In doing quite a bit of research lately, I set out with the mindset that I was going to gather a bunch of good data to “prove that the abiogenic theories of Gold et al were pure bunk”. Sadly, I have to admit that proving such a thing is a bit difficult. I do not believe that abiogenic origin is responsible for oil deposits, however, as I said the exact processes that form oil deposits are not as well understood as people would like. So I’m reluctant to wave my little hand and dismiss abiogenic oil dismissively until there is more evidence. It is also possible that some oil and natural gas is produced abiogenically, even if most is produced biogenically.
Could you describe abiogenic theories in more detail?
From the context of the previous posts, it sounds like they may be creationist (or ID) counter-theories meant to muddy the waters. If this is true, I’m not really interested, so you may all ignore my question above. I don’t want to start anything GD.
If you’re talking about cosmological sources (hydrocarbons accreted with other gases and dust to form Earth) or geological or some mixture of explanations, I’d like to hear more.
There have been threads on Gold’s abiogenic theories here in GQ before. You can start with these threads:
Oil: Inorganically produced??
Q about the origin of Petroleum
Fossil Fuels
Petroleum from microbes deep in earth’s crust?
Depletion (or not) of oil reserves
Non-Biological Origin of Petroleum?