Thank you for your reply.
I figured the Creo/permiablity argument would be quite easily explained.
I guess the meat of the controversy with me is: Is biogenic material required for oil to form, or can it form by chemical processes alone with materials present in the crust.
His ideas may have some merit - the deep gas in western Oklahoma was found by people who listened to him. But so very much petroleum has "biomarker" molecules in it that can be directly related to living things, even specific kinds of algae, or the cuticle on a kind of leaf, that I'm pretty well convinced that most oil is biogenic. A lot of natural gas may well not be, but that's not to say it's "primordial." There might be oxidation/reduction reactions in hot rock that could produce methane.
If oil is formed deeper in the crust and then works its way up into pockets, could it not collect biogenic material including bacteria, plant remains, etc. as it rises, or does the chemical nature of it mean it must have been formed FROM biogenic material?
Dr. Gold believed that the oil is a "renewable, primordial soup continually manufactured by the Earth under ultrahot conditions and tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward the surface, it is attached by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating back to the dinosaurs."
Hmmm. Where? I might want to invest.....
From the article...
Analysis of seismic recordings revealed the presence of a "deep fault" at the base of the Eugene Island reservoir which was gushing up a river of oil from some deeper and previously unknown source.
Similar results were seen at other Gulf of Mexico oil wells. Similar results were found in the Cook Inlet oil fields in Alaska. Similar results were found in oil fields in Uzbekistan. Similarly in the Middle East, where oil exploration and extraction have been underway for at least the last 20 years, known reserves have doubled.
I realize this is more of a sensationalized news story than a scientific study, but it perked my curiosity. For all who did not read the article here is a brief summary of the points in the theory:
The theory is simple: Crude oil forms as a natural inorganic process which occurs between the mantle and the crust, somewhere between 5 and 20 miles deep. The proposed mechanism is as follows:
Methane (CH4) is a common molecule found in quantity throughout our solar system — huge concentrations exist at great depth in the Earth.
At the mantle-crust interface, roughly 20,000 feet beneath the surface, rapidly rising streams of compressed methane-based gasses hit pockets of high temperature causing the condensation of heavier hydrocarbons. The product of this condensation is commonly known as crude oil.
Some compressed methane-based gasses migrate into pockets and reservoirs we extract as "natural gas."
In the geologically "cooler," more tectonically stable regions around the globe, the crude oil pools into reservoirs.
In the "hotter," more volcanic and tectonically active areas, the oil and natural gas continue to condense and eventually to oxidize, producing carbon dioxide and steam, which exits from active volcanoes.
Periodically, depending on variations of geology and Earth movement, oil seeps to the surface in quantity, creating the vast oil-sand deposits of Canada and Venezuela, or the continual seeps found beneath the Gulf of Mexico and Uzbekistan.
Periodically, depending on variations of geology, the vast, deep pools of oil break free and replenish existing known reserves of oil.
™ Version 4.2
