Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Abiotic oil

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Marimike6@cs.com
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Abiotic oil
  • Date: Sun, 9 Oct 2005 16:03:58 EDT

The abiogenesis of oil, coal and natural gas deposits is an idea that a
majority of petroleum geologists and engineers put into the same category as
Hollow
Earth Theory, or the extraterrestrial origin of life.

Not surprisingly, a great many of our sharper minds have been employed for a
very long time determining the nature of fossil fuel deposits, as a guide
toward exploration. There are a few people, even respected scientists, who
differ-- but their arguments tend toward the theoretical and abstruse. They
don't
have the advantage of having much unequivocal evidence to back them up.

Fossil fuel deposits, as a general rule, are found to occur in synclines
where ancient bodies of water have allowed the accumulation of vast
quantities of
dead organic matter without dispersal. Most of this matter tends to be algae,
which in its rotted, chemically stable form is known as kerogen. It is then
pressure cooked over long periods of time-- and heat, pressure and time all
play a part in the nature of the deposits created. These processes are known
as
thermal degradation and cracking.

Generally speaking, petroleum deposits that have cooked for too long end up
as short-chain hydrocarbons, or natural gas (methane, ethane, hexane, etc.).
Don't cook them long enough, or under enough pressure and they appear as oil
shales, coal-tar, tar sands and so-called "heavy oil". These substances,
stiffer
and more viscous, are composed of long-chain hydrocarbons. They are less
volatile, i.e. harder to burn, and make good asphalt.

The principle problem with the deep-earth origins of such substances is that
deeper than (as I recall) about 15,000 feet, pressure and temperature are so
great as to fry the oil. All the long-chain hydrocarbons get rendered into
the
lighter gases. Any explanation involving origin in the mantle would need to
explain how these volatiles, when trapped in sediments closer to the surface,
are able to convert themselves into longer hydrocarbon chains.

Theoretically it is certainly possible to have natural gas pockets appear
from mantle events. But no convincing evidence of which I'm aware has been
put
forth to illustrate that many or most of the deposits we've examined are from
such a source.

A good general introduction to the fossil fuel formation debate can be found
here:

http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2002/11nov/abiogenic.cfm

A caveat: I'm not an expert. Anyone with something more accurate to say,
please jump on in.

Michael




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page