Fundy friend says fossils fuels may not be from fossil sources.

[rickP]

A fundy friend of mine mentioned something about hearing that fossil fuels may not be as limited as thought because they may be produced by some other means than the decomposition of plants and animals from the carboniferous period. Has anybody heard any viable alternatives, or is this just another YEC argument that requires oil to be made differently in order to fit the young earth model?

Thanks...

[Loren Pechtel]

A fundy friend of mine mentioned something about hearing that fossil fuels may not be as limited as thought because they may be produced by some other means than the decomposition of plants and animals from the carboniferous period. Has anybody heard any viable alternatives, or is this just another YEC argument that requires oil to be made differently in order to fit the young earth model?

Thanks...

It's fundie garbage. When you chuck out evolution and geology you throw out most of the structure of biology in the process. Thus crackpot biological ideas can seem reasonable.

[ninewands]

A fundy friend of mine mentioned something about hearing that fossil fuels may not be as limited as thought because they may be produced by some other means than the decomposition of plants and animals from the carboniferous period.
There are, indeed, small amounts of hydrocarbons around the world that were formed by non-biogenetic means. The vast majority of these hydrocarbons are in the form of methane, a gas. These small deposits (primarily locked up in methane hydrates buried under the seafloor, are, by NO means, a significant fraction of the world's hydrocarbon reserves.

You can tell your fundie friend that the majority of fossil fuel reserves were, in fact, "produced by some other means than the decomposition of plants and animals from the carboniferous period." The majority of the world's giant and super-giant oilfields were produced by decomposition of animal remains (dead plants typically become coal) from the Permian, Jurassic, Miocene and Eocene epochs. The Carboniferous (known as the Pennsylvanian and Mississippian eras here in the US) is called such because this was when the majority of the world's coal beds were laid down.

Petroleum is an unlimited resource if you have the time to wait for new fields to form. However, petroleum cannot form at a rate anywhere close to the rate with which we are using it. So, to make a long story short, your fundie friend is wrong ... again.

[Jedi Mind Trick]

Noah used pitch to seal the Ark. So one problem they have to account for is how Noah was able to use pitch before the flood. Presumably, the animals and plants that were killed in the flood became oil, coal, pitch, etc...

It is a problem for the YEC and so they will now spin it.

[doc_simon]

A fundy friend of mine mentioned something about hearing that fossil fuels may not be as limited as thought because they may be produced by some other means than the decomposition of plants and animals from the carboniferous period. Has anybody heard any viable alternatives, or is this just another YEC argument that requires oil to be made differently in order to fit the young earth model?

Thanks...

I quite like Gold's theory, but then I'm not a geologist - so what do I know? I've read the book, and found it answers some of the things that always seemed weird about oil.

wiki linki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gold)


Gold achieved fame for his 1992 paper "The Deep Hot Biosphere" in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which presented a controversial view of the origin of coal, oil, and gas deposits, a theory of an abiogenic petroleum origin. The theory suggests coal and crude oil deposits have their origins in natural gas flows which feed bacteria living at extreme depths under the surface of the Earth; in other words, oil and coal are produced through tectonic forces, rather than from the decomposition of fossils. Gold also published a book of the same title in 1999, which expanded on the arguments in his 1992 paper and included speculations on the origin of life.

According to Gold and Russian scientific forebears, bacteria feeding on the oil accounts for the presence of biological debris in hydrocarbon fuels, obviating the need to resort to a biogenic theory for the origin of the latter. The flows of underground hydrocarbons may also explain oddities in the concentration of other mineral deposits.

Most western geologists and petrologists consider petroleum abiogenic theories implausible and believe the biogenic theory of 'fossil fuel' formation adequately explains all observed fossil fuel deposits. Most geologists do recognize the geologic carbon cycle includes subducted carbon which returns to the surface, with studies showing the carbon does rise in various ways. Gold and geology experts point out the biogenic theories do not explain phenomena such as helium in oil fields and oil fields associated with deep geologic features.

However, recent discoveries have shown that bacteria live at depths far greater than previously believed. Whilst this does not prove Gold's theory, it certainly lends support to its arguments. A thermal depolymerization process which converts animal waste to carbon fuels does show some processes can be done without bacterial action, but does not explain details of natural oil deposits such as magnetite production.


On a related point. Fossil fuels doesn't just include oil - there's peat, that oily sand stuff, coal etc

[rickP]

Thanks for the link. Interesting, but a little bit above my head. Doesn't sound like a creationist argument, at least.

[hagiograph]

I have not yet read Gold's book, and while no doubt there are some minor amounts of abiogenic hydrocarbons, but largely oil still contains a lot of materials that look like the degradation products of chlorophyll. There is precious little reason for a "deep dwelling" bacterium to have chlorophyll.

As for an earlier post about coal formation, I am unaware that Gold claims abiogenic formation of coal, but if anyone does, they can easily be proven wrong in about 3 minutes. From several years of personal experience looking at coal under a microscope I can vouch for the fact that it is made up of easily identifiable plant parts (and spores and algae and some bacterial colonies). There is no mystery about this.

-h.

[roxrkool]

The majority of the world's giant and super-giant oilfields were produced by decomposition of animal remains (dead plants typically become coal) from the Permian, Jurassic, Miocene and Eocene epochs.
Hmmm... that's something I've not heard before. Do you have any literature on that?

[premjan]

I think the precise origin of a fossil fuel depends on the oil or gas field. for instance, I think Ghawar (the largest, Saudi oil field) is the result of the shit of marine creatures.

[hagiograph]

Oil is usually sourced from algal/bacterial colony remains. It is called "Type I" organics. It is dominated by longer-chain aliphatics and some unsaturated materials as well as a slew of other organics.

Coal is usually sourced from land plants as well as algae and bacterial colonies. The land plants that dominate many coals make up "Type III" organics. There are more derivatives of lignin as well as waxes.

Type II organics are a combination of land and marine organics.

-h.

[Nialler]

Noah used pitch to seal the Ark. So one problem they have to account for is how Noah was able to use pitch before the flood. Presumably, the animals and plants that were killed in the flood became oil, coal, pitch, etc...

It is a problem for the YEC and so they will now spin it.
/Trying on a YEC hat for a minute....

Err, no. Noah's use of pitch proves that tar can form in less than a couple of thousand years, and our current oild and gas reserves all formed in a similar period of time. Why else did g-d put that reference in the bible unless it was to show us the truth of this.

Have you ever seen oil form, eh, eh, eh?

/taking YEC hat off.

Of course, I'm in no way a YEC, but I guess that'd be their answer.

That or.. "Ah, but the aramaic word "xyz" has commonly been misinterpreted as meaning "pitch", as in tar. What it really means is "drying dinosaur droppings". Oh, yes. Dinsoaurs were around at the time, and the need for their droppings - and their blood - as caulking agents is one of the reasons that they died out as part of g-od's plan. No, I know that it doesn't say that in the bibull, but it's there if you read between the lines."

[premjan]

gas hydrates are apparently from anerobic decomposition of organic matter by bacteria.

[Berthold]

As for an earlier post about coal formation, I am unaware that Gold claims abiogenic formation of coal, but if anyone does, they can easily be proven wrong in about 3 minutes.

Gold does. He explains the botanic shapes as analogous to petrified wood.

[hagiograph]

Gold does. He explains the botanic shapes as analogous to petrified wood.

Wow, Gold believes coal comes from non-biogenic sources??? :rolling:

What does he mean by analogous to petrified wood? Petrified wood is clearly of biogenic origins but replaced by non-biogenic stuff (silica).

Is he saying that the organics in the original coal-swamp plants are removed and replaced by non-biogenic organics???

Even if he's never seen coal in real life, occam's razor alone is enough to eliminate that hypothesis!

Please tell me more! I'm going to have to go read some of his stuff. Guess I'll have to pick up "Deep Hot Biosphere"...is it in the humor section at the bookstore? :)

-h.

[Berthold]

Please tell me more! I'm going to have to go read some of his stuff. Guess I'll have to pick up "Deep Hot Biosphere"...is it in the humor section at the bookstore? :)

Good idea. I have some doubts, though, that after reading the book you will still think that Gold is an outright crank. The hypotheses were, of course, controversial to start with, and it is a bit suspicious that not much has been heard about the matter recently. But obtaining a substantial sample of oil by drilling into the Swedish granite shield is not peanuts either.

[hagiograph]

Good idea. I have some doubts, though, that after reading the book you will still think that Gold is an outright crank. The hypotheses were, of course, controversial to start with, and it is a bit suspicious that not much has been heard about the matter recently. But obtaining a substantial sample of oil by drilling into the Swedish granite shield is not peanuts either.

I don't think Gold an outright crank, per se. I have no doubt that there are hydrocarbons of non-biogenic origins. And that has been somewhat fascinating hearing about Gold's hypothesis, but to assume that the majority of petroleum which has a variety of biomarkers that can give a completely different story to the origin is shere folly.

I have heard mention of the Swedish granite-based petroleum find. But there are indeed fractures in granite. This is not the only "impermeable" rock that petroleum has been pulled out of either. There are a number of fractured reservoirs. Besides, even if you find petroleum in a granite he can't possibly assume that it formed in situ, can he? Why didn't he start looking in carbonatites? If it didn't form in situ then it had to form somewhere else, and it doesn't really prove anything.

The petroleum issue aside, the coal thing still floors me, though. There are any number of items to discuss about the origin of petroleum, but when it comes to coal that's pretty well understood (actually petroleum is too).

I think Dr. Gold should pursue his hypothesis, if only to flesh out the tiny bit around the edges of what we know about petroleum, source rocks and reservoirs, but the real danger is when people think this has fundamentally overturned what we know about petroleum and organic geochemistry.

-h.

[Berthold]

I think Dr. Gold should pursue his hypothesis, if only to flesh out the tiny bit around the edges of what we know about petroleum, source rocks and reservoirs, but the real danger is when people think this has fundamentally overturned what we know about petroleum and organic geochemistry.

Shortly after the book was published, I read a grossly misrepresenting praise of it in Lyndon H. Larouche's magazine "21st Century Science and Technology". No one is immune to that; it somehow reminds of the creationists' usurping of Gould and Eldredge.
As for my occasional reading of Larouche's publications: I still have not made up my mind if it is all bullshit. I am definitely not politically right-wing, that much I can declare!

[ninewands]

The majority of the world's giant and super-giant oilfields were produced by decomposition of animal remains (dead plants typically become coal) from the Permian, Jurassic, Miocene and Eocene epochs.
Hmmm... that's something I've not heard before. Do you have any literature on that?
I apologize, it would have been more accurate to say bacterial remains, but I learned biology back in the day when bacteria were usually considered animals of a sort.

As for the geologic ages of oil reservoirs, I must admit that my knowledge is somewhat anecdotal being based upon some 13 years working in oil & gas exploration.

[hagiograph]

As for the geologic ages of oil reservoirs, I must admit that my knowledge is somewhat anecdotal being based upon some 13 years working in oil & gas exploration.

Ahhh Houston and the oil scene. I'm jealous. I interviewed with a major oil company about 10 years ago but didn't get it. At the time I thought living in Houston (the only place nearly as humid as New Orleans) would be worth the $$$$. Many friends are "survivors" of the petroleum companies.

Do you mostly work in the Gulf or have you done any cool overseas well-sittings? A friend of my wife's did a few years in Saudi Arabia and came back rich as sin. A friend of mine from grad school did a few years offshore of Nigeria. Not sure where her money went.

As for the ages, there are some Silurian reefs that are currently tapped in the Illinois basin, iirc. Now, I'm assuming the age of the petroleum to be similar but that isn't necessarily so, since the reefs are the reservoir owing to porosity.

-h.

[roxrkool]

I apologize, it would have been more accurate to say bacterial remains, but I learned biology back in the day when bacteria were usually considered animals of a sort.
Okay. I thought maybe that's what you meant, but dinos are what popped in my head. Just making sure. :)

[Berthold]

As for the ages, there are some Silurian reefs that are currently tapped in the Illinois basin, iirc. Now, I'm assuming the age of the petroleum to be similar but that isn't necessarily so, since the reefs are the reservoir owing to porosity.

Would, then, the oil have probably come from lower strata, and be older than those it is found in?

[hagiograph]

Would, then, the oil have probably come from lower strata, and be older than those it is found in?

The thing that dictates where the source rock actually is is more directly related to hydraulic head. The source rock could be older than the Silurian reefs, or it could just be from a younger rock that is "down gradient" from it. It's been so many years since I've done anything even remotely related to the Illinois basin that I don't remember the stratigraphy in that area.

Also, since reef deposits usually mean a lateral facies change the source rock could be contemporary with it, but represent the organic rich shales further out in the basin. But that's just guessing on my behalf.

My only work with organics in the Illinois Basin was coal mapping and thermal gradient mapping using organic geochem of stuff in the southern part of the basin and in the Carboniferous. I didn't do any work with oil, but that was the area we studied most in undergrad.

-h.

[doc_simon]

Lemme just read the bit in his book(p. 86) where he talks about coal. I'll type notes here as I go:

* Some coal contains fossils, but not all. He asks why only a few fossils remain - why did they not turn to coal?
* He claims some fossils are filled with solid carbon without being deformed. He says coal entered the cells as a fluid, in the same way silica enters pertrified wood
* He claims the coal is essentially soot from incomplete oxidation
* Oil upwells, stuff happens (too complex for this time of night)
* The fact that the same type of hopanoids (from the bacteria) are found in coal and oil suggests a that they underwent the same processes. The biogenic theory has to explain why the same bacteria dined on marine stuff and land stuff.
* Coal is a product of oil, hence the the similarities
* He did an experiment where he made stuff similar to coal by heating methane. One a speck of soot had formed, more carbon was deposited.

I'll quote the conclusions

"In conclusion, I believe that coal may be formed by both abiotic and biotic processes. What distinquishes this theory from traditional theory is that coal is postulated to be derived from a source upwelling from the depths rather than a deposit sinking from the surface. The carbon has entered from below as carbon-bearing fluid such as methane, butane or propane, and thus could penetrate into the cells of any plant fossils that were present in the flow path. After that continual loss of hydrogen would gradually bring it closer to the consitency we call coal."

He then goes on to give his evidence for upwelling.

* Some coal seems are 10m thick, yet the mineral content pay be as low as 4%. The bulk is just carbon, which he says means that the swamp would have to have laid down about 300m , with a mineral content of less than 1%.
* No such swamp exists today
* Ratio minerals/carbon in present day plant debris is very much higher
* Coal and methane are often found together, but we would expect the methane to have dissipated away after a long period of time. His theory requires methane to be upwelled.
* you can find fossilized tree trunks that span through a coal stream to the rock layers above and below - but they are not coalified
* oil and coal are often found in the same place. if oil is crushed up marine stuff, and coal is crushed up land stuff - how can this be true?
* coal can be found inside oil reservoirs (apparently this is true in wyoming)
* coal fields contain more methane than could have been produced by the exisiting coal


Anyway, thats enough for now! I'd be intrigued to read some academic papers debunking Gold's stuff. I'd especially like to know the opinion from Russian oil experts, as Gold says this stuff is known to them. I bought the book out of curiosity, and thought the arguments more convincing than the stuff I'd been told previously.

If his theory is true, then burning fossil fuels could be worse than we thought - as the released carbon has never been in the environment.

[hagiograph]

Muppetboy, thanks for the info! This is fascinating stuff.

Total crap, but fascinating. Clearly Dr. Gold has never actually SEEN coal. Yet he writes about it as if he has! Interesting.

He claims the coal is essentially soot from incomplete oxidation

There are coal particles called "macerals". These macerals are made up of discrete and highly identifiable portions of plant cells. Many differ by how reflective they are and how much carbon relative to oxygen and hydrogen they contain. The highest reflecting coal maceral is called "fusinite". There are extensive beds of fusinite (called "fusain") that are thought to be the remains of coal-swamp forest fires. They are sometimes extensive and make nice marker beds in a coal deposit.

Coal scientists know all about oxidation of coal. It can change reflectence of the macerals, even vitrinites (what I did my dissertation on).

* Coal is a product of oil, hence the the similarities

What, that they are both organic? There are a number of coals that are made up of algal (bacterial actually) stuff, these are called cannel coals or boghead coals. You can see the individual bacterial bodies preserved in the coal. If Gold had ever actually seen coal under a scope he'd know that. He'd also know that you can't just paint one compound as the core of all coal. Hopanoids? Is that all he thinks coal is made up of? It's made up of a lot of derivatives of LIGNIN too. Precious little reason for deep dwelling bacteria to have that much lignin I should think.

* He did an experiment where he made stuff similar to coal by heating methane. One a speck of soot had formed, more carbon was deposited.

I sincerely doubt he made anything that looked even MARGINALLY like coal from this. He made carbon, no doubt, but it will look very different.

Jack Crelling at SIU-Carbondale has a great collection of searchable atlas of photomicrographs of carbons and cokes and COAL MACERALS at:

http://mccoy.lib.siu.edu/projects/crelling2/atlas/

Gold really should look through this, compare and contrast.

"In conclusion, I believe that coal may be formed by both abiotic and biotic processes. What distinquishes this theory from traditional theory is that coal is postulated to be derived from a source upwelling from the depths rather than a deposit sinking from the surface. The carbon has entered from below as carbon-bearing fluid such as methane, butane or propane, and thus could penetrate into the cells of any plant fossils that were present in the flow path. After that continual loss of hydrogen would gradually bring it closer to the consitency we call coal."

When I read crap like this I have to wonder if Gold has ever seen a Van Krevelen diagram of organic diagenesis. Does he think it's an easy task to take CH4 and ethane and butane and propane and build porphyrin rings and lignin derivatives as opposed to just breaking down plant materials which have these starting materials in abundance?

I will reiterate, again, that certainly some non-biogenic carbon exists on the planet. NO doubt about that. But to suggest that even a large portion of coal beds are made THIS way is complete and utter, unadulterated, bullshit.

I really am going to have to pick up Gold's stuff. Of course I suspect that if this is the level of material he's espousing it will make my skin crawl.

If you really want a GOOD book on coal and what it looks like in reality, pick up a copy of Coal Petrology by Stach. It's expensive, but it's well worth it, and it's compact and has lots of good info.

There's also about a zillion books on organic geochemistry. Don't let Gold's stuff be the only thing you read on this topic. It really is a very interesting topic.

-h.

[doc_simon]

Well, you've certainly made me doubt it. It would be very cool to go through the entire book with an expert - a good exercise in debunking.

I couldn't find a web site taking the theory to pieces, so I assumed there was some elements of truth in it. Gold is a smart guy, who I wouldn't have expected to BS. Be interesting to know the history of his writings on this topic.

If you do pick up the book, and have time, a thorough debunking would be good. It's probably not sensible to try to debunk based on my report of the book. The book has lots of details, and I'm sure I've got some details wrong. Judging by your reply I've not explained his stuff well, as your replies don't quite gel with what I wrote. For example, the bit you quoted about soot was badly explained by me. Coal is not oxidised coal, as your comments say. But coal is hydrocarbons that have upwelled, and through some process he describes are essentially forming soot as they are not fully oxidised. Again, I'm badly explaining his stuff.

Gold would say that the bacteria you see in coal/oil is bacteria that has been munching on it.

If I get what he says right, the hopanoids are not what coal is made from. But coal contains these - and they are markers of biological activity. The same types of hopanoid occur in oil. Gold does not say coal/oil is made from bacteria - the bacteria are just living off it.

So, looking back on my post, your post, and my text above. I think it would be worth reading the book before fully dismissing it. Although, I am certainyl more skeptical than I was. I apologise if my posts were unclear - hopefully the book will be better written!

Just found this wired article (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/gold_pr.html) it includes a little interview with Gold at the bottom.

muppetboy

[doc_simon]

While I'm still thinking about oil and avoiding house work - I'll post another thing. This if from the wired article linked above - and explain the Swedish drilling thing. It wasn't about finding oil - but finding bacteria which were probably dining on oil where there shouldn't be oil. AFAIK the spot he picked was supposed to be oil free - as it was in the middle of a lot of granite.

Still this clarifies what he was up to...


**You saw what you thought was evidence when you drilled in Sweden and found signs of life 6 kilometers down in the form of sludge and tiny grains of the mineral magnetite. What was the significance of that finding?

Magnetite is a chemically reduced form of iron oxide, which means it has less oxygen bound to the iron than more common iron oxides. The whole story of the deep hot biosphere is that oil coming up from below, without biology, will be food material for microbiology when it gets to a relatively shallow level where the temperature is not too high. For the microbes to use that oil as food when there's no atmospheric oxygen, they have to find oxygen in the rocks. There is plenty there, but there is not all that much in an easily removable form.

** But what is easily usable is in common iron oxides - and when that's used, magnetite gets left behind.

Yes.

** In your book you talk about being so excited at finding the sludge that you tried to analyze it yourself in a friend's kitchen.

That's right. I arrived on a Saturday in Mallorca with the sample and I was alone in the apartment. So first of all I looked around in the neighborhood and there was not a single shop open. I knew the sample was oily - I could feel that - so I thought that maybe there would be some nail polish remover to use as a solvent. I looked through all the cupboards for nail polish remover but couldn't find any. Eventually I decided hot water and kitchen detergent would be my best bet. The sludge was like quite thick putty so I tried to dissolve it - it took a lot of doing. In the end I had a clear liquid, light gray, and I thought it was particulate. The grain size was so small that kitchen paper could serve as a chromatogram - diffusion would take the black stuff some way out through the paper, while the liquid went much farther. In such a case you think first of a metal. So I thought, Well, iron is common - is there a magnet in the house? There were magnetic door latches on the cabinets, so I unscrewed those and put some of my liquid on aluminum foil and immediately it made sharp lines between the poles. So it was most likely magnetite.

[hagiograph]

Muppetboy,
You are exactly correct. I will need to read Gold for myself before dismissing it out of hand. And what I'm writing is solely in response to what I'm reading here and as such should not be taken as a good debunking.

Certainly Gold is not out of his mind to posit non-biological carbon in the earth. There's a variety of carbon materials that are non-biological. Graphite, diamond and carbonatites (a really strange igneous rock).

I first heard of Gold's stuff back in 1999 when a friend of mine who just happened to be verging on Creationism started reading it and didn't bother to stop off at more mainstream organic geochem.

What I think people need to remember when reading Gold is that coal and oil are not that big of a mystery. It's one thing to posit a bizarre (as of 1985) hypothesis for the extinction of the dinosaurs, but quite another to posit an overly complex explanation for coal and oil.

When you look at a chunk of coal under the microscope and you analyze it chemically it looks like wood and it has the chemical signatures of degraded wood.

Bacteria do play a major major role in the degradation of organics that make up coal. Their signature is all over the place. But to suggest that the coal is made by "replacing" organic structures in such a way that they just happen to look like the degraded remains of land plants as opposed to them actually being degraded remains of landplants seems a bit on the absurd side.

Fossilized wood is made by solutions bearing small amounts of silica and other oxides flowing through wood and replacing it by depositing the silica and other oxides in place of the wood. That's why it retains its cell wall shape. But to assume that the majority of the carbon in a coal is put there by bacteria that are "fixing" gaseous simple hydrocarbons and building large molecules that look exactly like wood-decay products is akin to me saying that my wife is not actually the woman I married but was switched unbeknownst to me one night with a genetically identical creature grown in a lab by robots. This is why I mentioned Occam's Razor earlier.

I am definitely going to have to read Gold now. It will no doubt be a task if indeed you quoted him as he spoke. It will drive me up a wall. But I certainly owe it a read. It's been a few years since I was involved in coal chemistry.

I think the real problems lie in the fact that Gold is positing hypotheses that don't really need to be hypothesized. Coal occurs exactly where you'd expect it and it looks exactly like a coal-swamp deposit would look, and it looks exactly like regular biological material. Again, there's no mystery here. All his bluster aside, there are modern day analogues of Pennsylvanian coal swamps and there is a clear continuum of fresh organics--peat--lignite--bituminous--anthracite.

So I have to wonder why he undertakes a thought experiment like this without a need to, and why he seems to think his thought experiment can effectively undercut nearly 100 years of coal petrography and organic geochemistry.


By the way, does Gold talk at all about stable isotope signatures of his abiogenic carbons? I should think this would be an interesting aspect.

-h.

PS: As for oil in a granite, again, oil accumulates in materials that have nothing to do with its genesis. This is called a "fractured reservoir". I don't know the details of the Swedish find, but oil will travel from its source rock quite a large distance and reside in any space it can get into if the pressure gradient is right.

PPS: I am impressed by Gold's find of the magnetite. That's what the NASA scientists opted to look for on Mars for life-signs. But, again, bacteria feasting on organics in extreme locales is not necessarily a breathtaking finding, nor does it necessarily support the hypothesis that most oil is non-biogenic carbon that was munched by bacteria.

-h.