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| Oil Shortage! What Oil Shortage? |
| 2004-06-07 |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #3 There is a related theory that oil may be coming from deep rock microbes. I blathered a little about it on my site, but the authority on the matter (at least as far as Google took me) is Thomas Gold at Cornell. Here is another article on the microbes that's not about oil per se. Also on the same site as the linked Rantburg article is this which claims that the Russians have recovered oil with no biological markers. There's supposed to be some conference in July that includes this subject amongst the topics. Perhaps we'll see more information in the near future. |
| Posted by: Laurence of the Rats 2004-06-07 2:56:23 PM |
| #2 I looked at this in detail some years ago. There are some interesting anomalies that give the theory some substance like ratios of isotopes. If the Russians are indeed producing substantial oil from igneous rocks then that is very interesting, but I recall about 20 years ago Sweden tested the theory by drilling in the debris of a meteor impact crater in an large area of igneous rocks i.e. far from the sedimentary rocks that biotic orgin says oil/gas formed in. They found only trace amounts of oil and gas. BTW, the theory says the reason you find oil/gas in sedimentary rocks is they have gaps in which the oil can accumulate that igneous rocks don't have. Much as I would like this theory to be true, I don't think it is. Although the idea that some natural gas has an abiotic origin is more plausible. |
| Posted by: Phil B 2004-06-07 8:58:53 AM |
| #1 The author's opinion, namely, that most petroleum recovered is abiotic in origin, is a minority opinion. |
| Posted by: mhw 2004-06-07 8:32:17 AM |