Public release date: 13-May-2009 (from EurekAlert)
Contact: Stephanie Murphy
508-289-3340
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Natural petroleum seeps release equivalent of eight to 80 Exxon Valdez oil spills
Study off Santa Barbara is first to quantify oil in sediments
A new study by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) is the first to quantify the amount of oil residue in seafloor sediments that result from natural petroleum seeps off Santa Barbara, California.
The new study shows the oil content of sediments is highest closest to the seeps and tails off with distance, creating an oil fallout shadow. It estimates the amount of oil in the sediments down current from the seeps to be the equivalent of approximately 8-80 Exxon Valdez oil spills.
The paper is being published in the May 15 issue of Environmental Science & Technology.
“Farwell developed and mapped out our plan for collecting sediment samples from the ocean floor,” said WHOI marine chemist Chris Reddy, referring to lead author Chris Farwell, at the time an undergraduate working with UCSB’s Dave Valentine. “After conducting the analysis of the samples, we were able to make some spectacular findings.”
There is an oil spill everyday at Coal Oil Point (COP), the natural seeps off Santa Barbara, California, where 20-25 tons of oil have leaked from the seafloor each day for the last several hundred thousand years.
Earlier research by Reddy and Valentine at the site found that microbes were capable of degrading a significant portion of the oil molecules as they traveled from the reservoir to the ocean bottom and that once the oil floated to sea surface, about 10 percent of the molecules evaporated within minutes.
“One of the natural questions is: What happens to all of this oil?” Valentine said. “So much oil seeps up and floats on the sea surface. It’s something we’ve long wondered. We know some of it will come ashore as tar balls, but it doesn’t stick around. And then there are the massive slicks. You can see them, sometimes extending 20 miles from the seeps. But what really is the ultimate fate?”
Based on their previous research, Valentine and Reddy surmised that the oil was sinking “because this oil is heavy to begin with,” Valentine said. “It’s a good bet that it ends up in the sediments because it’s not ending up on land. It’s not dissolving in ocean water, so it’s almost certain that it is ending up in the sediments.”
To conduct their sampling, the team used the research vessel Atlantis, the 274-foot ship that serves as the support vessel for the Alvin submersible.
“We were conducting research at the seeps using Alvin during the summer of 2007,” recalls Reddy. “One night during that two-week cruise, after the day’s Alvin dive was complete and its crew prepared the sub for the next day’s dive, Captain AD Colburn guided the Atlantis on an all-night sediment sampling campaign. It was no easy task for the crew of the Atlantis. We were operating at night, awfully close to land with a big ship where hazards are frequent. I tip my hat to Captain Colburn, his crew, and the shipboard technician for making this sampling effort so seamless.”
The research team sampled 16 locations in a 90 km2 (35 square mile) grid starting 4 km west of the active seeps. Sample stations were arranged in five longitudinal transects with three water depths (40, 60, and 80 m) for each transect, with one additional comparison sample obtained from within the seep field.
To be certain that the oil they measured in the sediments came from the natural seeps, Farwell worked in Reddy’s lab at WHOI using a comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatograph (GC×GC), that allowed them to identify specific compounds in the oil, which can differ depending on where the oil originates.
“The instrument reveals distinct biomarkers or chemical fossils — like bones for an archeologist — present in the oil. These fossils were a perfect match for the oil from the reservoir, the oil collected leaking into the ocean bottom, oil on the sea surface, and oil back in the sediment. We could say with confidence that the oil we found in the sediments was genetically connected to the oil reservoir and not from an accidental spill or runoff from land.”
The oil that remained in the sediments represents what was not removed by “weathering” — dissolving into the water, evaporating into the air, or being degraded by microbes. Next steps for this research team involve investigating why microbes consume most, but not all, of the compounds in the oil.
“Nature does an amazing job acting on this oil but somehow the microbes stopped eating, leaving a small fraction of the compounds in the sediments,” said Reddy. “Why this happens is still a mystery, but we are getting closer.”
Support for this research came from the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the Seaver Institute.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, independent organization in Falmouth, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the oceans and their interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the oceans’ role in the changing global environment.
On a slightly more serious note, Anaconda. I’m really kind of curious about where you get your info about the Brazil subsalt wells. It doesn’t seem that Petrobras agrees with you on the source of the oil.
“Source rocks for the petroleum system are Lower Cretaceous lacustrine shales of the sub-salt Guaratiba Formation.”
See
http://thisbluemarble.com/showthread.php?p=93193
for the rest
Anaconda (13:21:02) noted: “I was the first commenter to raise the Abiotic Oil angle on this post…”
Meant to include you in my “thank you” post ( Roger Carr (06:29:46)), Anaconda, as your original (Anaconda (08:39:16)) post certainly snatched my attention, as “abiotic oil” theory has a very nice ring to it, and, as you note: Where have we seen that before — or are seeing now?
Actually, I like the Abiotic Oil theory.
I don’t consider it realistic, though. It would be nice to think that oil is being constantly created and all we need to do is find good ways to tap into the creation zones, but, I don’t think it’s going to happen.
I’m definitely not arguing for or against it, because at the moment all the proponents appear somewhat flakey. I’m fairly certain that there is no compelling or logical reason to abandon our current theories (which work in practise) to pursue the idea, however if compelling or logical reasons come to light then I’d be all ears.
It’s one of those things that I don’t consider likely, but for various reasons I’d like to, and if it turned out to be real I would not be surprised.
@ur momisugly Doug:
Doug states: “The deep stuff in Brazil produces because inspite of being deep, the vitrinite reflectance is below 2.2, tmax below 500C, and is within the oil window.”
This is a meaningless statement meant to look authoritive, but in all my discussions and research have never seen that justification offered for the temperature of the oil.
Doug, is there any written authority you can cite for that proposition?
Commonly, it is assumed that the salt layer is put down by evaporation (two miles below the sea bottom?), but more likely it is a product of supercritical water, where seawater under pressure and temperature drops its salt out of solution, then the salt acts as a barrier and traps the oil as it rises from below the salt barrier. There is no so-called “source rock” there.
Shale is impermeable, it acts as a trapping structure, not a source.
Doug states: “I can show you long lived oil wells everywhere…they are continuously recharged fron their organic source.”
Now, Doug is attempting to suggest that supposed organic detritus regenerates? That is novel. But is a fiat statement.
Actually, Abiotic Oil has been generated in the laboratory by known chemical processes(chiefly metal – acid reactions), the supposed chemical pathway for “fossil” theory has never been duplicated in a laboratory.
Doug states: “I’m an independant consultant. I wrote ‘The Petroleum Geology and Future Exploration Potential of Indonesia’ …”
Then obviously you have a strong financial incentive to maintain that oil is derived from organic detritus. Such widespread understanding would presumably render your knowledge less valuble.
Your “explanation” for pillow lava containing solid bitumen is actually no explanation at all, it’s an avoidance.
“No one doubts that inorganic hydrocarbons may occur in association with hydrothermal systems.” — Michael D. Lewan, geologist, 2005
“I don’t think anybody has ever doubted that there is an inorganic source of hydrocarbons.” — Michael D. Lewan, geologist, 2002
Michael D. Lewan is a well respected geo-physicist, let me be clear, Lewan would go on to state the amounts of ‘inorganic’ hydrocarbons is limited to small amounts, but neither he nor anybody else has identified what constraints would limit Abiotic Oil formation in the Earth’s deep crust to the small quanity he would postulate is produced.
As for papers:
http://www.gasresources.net/DisposalBioClaims.htm
http://www.searchanddiscovery.net/documents/abstracts/2005research_calgary/abstracts/extended/keith/keith.htm
These are just two papers. There are more.
@ur momisuglySandw15:
Sandw15 states: “I’m really kind of curious about where you get your info about the Brazil subsalt wells. It doesn’t seem that Petrobras agrees with you on the source of the oil.”
Publically assessable records. Do you dispute the physical conditions and circumstances the oil is found in?
I understand that is what Petrobas claims, but it offers hardly any evidence that in those conditions and circumstances and at those depths in the stratographic profile a shallow sea ever existed, 25,000 feet on average below the current sea level a 175 miles out to sea in the Atlantic ocean. The evidence is actually that ocean levels were higher millions of years ago, not less, that’s why scientists find aquatic fossils ON the North American continent.
This completely contradicts the idea that world ocean levels ever were 25,000 feet lower than today.
And, all kidding aside — what about it, seriously — how do you explain rare Earth metals’ abundance in oil that far exceeds any concentrations in the surrounding rock?
Your sarcastic humor is simply a distraction for not having an answer.
The story is interesting in itself – that there is seepage. But tying it to oil tanker disasters is really poor.
AGW could be false. The instrumental record could be all wrong. Renewables could be a mirage. None of that is a reason for condoning or minimizing the effects of pollution. And oil spills, in their effects on marine wildlife, are one of the worst kinds of pollution.
If you get skepticism about AGW tangled up with arguing for a license to pollute, you will do skepticism a grave disservice. You will in fact be giving a free target to those who attack the person rather than the argument. The surface stations project’s credibility will suffer.
Should you have carried the story? Maybe. But you should have pointed out that it is wrong to compare a huge load of oil from a tanker over a period of days or weeks, with the slow seepage from the sea bottom over millennia, or to suggest that because the total amounts of the latter are larger than the total amount of the first, in some way their effects are comparable. They are not.
Consider comparing decelerations. I decelerate from 80 to zero mph in two seconds as a result of a collision. Someone publishes an article saying that a plane slows down from 500mph to zero, or 6 times the amount, over a period of a half hour. The implication of the article is that we should not worry about collisions. Silly, very silly, and actually, dishonest.
“If you get skepticism about AGW tangled up with arguing for a license to pollute, you will do skepticism a grave disservice. ”
Huh??
Who suggested that. What this is saying clearly is don’t think all the oil you may see on beaches is from Nasty-Nasty Man, Nature, too, pollutes.
The other message is that Nature can clean it up too, which it takes a twisted mind to see as a license to pollute. But the crypto-Marxist anti-capitalism of Alarmism constitutes a twisted mind I suppose.
The scientific evidence is that hydrocarbons (oil) has been a constituent of the Earth’s crust for a very long time.
“It’s at least plausible that the 3.2 billion year old oil we found did in fact have an abiotic origin.” — Roger Buick, astrobiologist/geoscientist, July 2008
See the abstract write up below of the 3.2 billion year old oil Roger Buick found:
http://aapgbull.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/82/1/50
It would seem that oil has been a constituent of the Earth’s crust for BILLIONS of years. This strongly suggests ancient bacteria evolved to eat the oil previously existent, not the other way around.
This explains why the oil eating bacteria found off the Santa Barbara, California coast (and all over the world) do such a terrific job of cleaning up the oil from the environment — they have had a lot of practice.
Re: Anaconda (00:42:31) et al:
Astronomy and space exploration have demonstrated the existence of complex hydrocarbon molecules within interstellar nebulae and the Solar System’s own planetary/sub-planetary bodies, Titam being one such example. Consequently, abiotic sources of hydrocarbons are not controversial. So, why should it be so controversial to expect Petroleum systems to have abiotic origins on the Earth?
The Earth’s petroleum systems are well known to have indisputable biotic origins, and we know this by a variety of means up to and including the molecular genetic fragments from the biological organisms which compose the petroleum. If other worlds have massive quantities of abiotic hydrocarbons, why doesn’t the Earth have them in its geological petroleum systems?
The Earth does not have the same massive quantities of abiotic hydrocarbons in its petroleum systems as other worlds in the Solar System because the Earth has experienced profound chemical transformations of its original abiotic hydrocarbons which the environments of other known worlds have not experienced.
The Earth’s original atmosphere was a couple hundred times more massive than our present atmosphere. This primeval atmosphere also had a profoundly different composition. In addition to dihydrogen monoxide (water vapor) there was also some amounts of methane, ammonia, and other gases from which more complex hydrocarbon compounds would eventually be formed.
As the Earth cooled from its intitial formation and the Late Heavy Bombardment events, this early atmosphere underwent dramatic changes in mixtures and chemical compositions. Likewise, the Earth’s lithospere underwent dramtaic changes in chemistry and differentiation of densities. As the early Sun brightened, some of the Noble gases, methane, and other gases were lost from Earth’s earlt and more massive atmosphere, and were pushed to the planetary bodies of the outer Solar System. Some small portions of the hydrocarbons found on Titan today likely came from the Earth’s origial atmosphere. So, what became of the early methane, ammonia, and other abiotic hydrocarbons in the Earth’s original atmosphere? Answer: The Earth ate them.
Am I serious and speaking literally, or am I speaking figuratively. Some of both, actually.
During the early stages of the Earth’s formation, the Earth’s core, mantle, and crust were differentiated by density and chemistry. This tended to expel the more volitile matter into the Earth’s original atmosphere and proto-crust, leaving little opportunity for complex hydrocarbon chains to remain present and intact in the mantle as more than trace amounts. Further geological activity in the crust also tended to destroy more complex hydrocarbon molecules or expel them into the Earth’s early atmosphere. Consequently, the Earth’s original supply of hydrocarbons which remained undestroyed during the early formaiton of the Earth tended to be re-concentrated within the Earth’s atmosphere and the Earth’s crust to a much lesser extent. What little hydrocarbons remained in the crust’s igenous geology were relatively insignificant in concentration. The hydrocarbons overwhelmingly re-concentrated the Earth’s atmosphere were an altogether different matter.
Anaerobic life got a very early start, even while the Earth was still in the process of cooling down and and making drastic changes in the chemistries of its rocks, minerals and proto-crust. In addition to the precipitation of the hydrosphere from the atmosphere, Life or the biosphere is responsible for consuming and chemically transforming the atmosphere and reducing its mass from a couple of hundred atmospheres to the present one atmosphere.
Geochemical and biochemical processes were highly efficient in removing Earth’s original supplies of hydrocarbons from the atmosphere and integrating those hydrocarbons into the biosphere and sedimentary rocks of the crust. In other words, the Earth’s original abiotic hydrocarbons were almost universally incorporated and highly concentrated into the Earth’s biological organisms and biosphere, before large quantities of this organic matter became recycled through the biosphere and sequestered into the Earth’s crust as sedimentary and metamophic rock formations.
This is the reason why abiotic oil has not been found to constitute a significant pool of petroleum and remains an implausibe source for the future. Today’s biotic pools of petroleum are composed from the Earth’s original supplies of abiotic hydrocarbons. Life has had an uncanny ability to seek out and consume or eat hydrocarbons and abiotic oil over the past 4 billion years, leaving too little of the abiotic hydrocarbons free to produce pools of abiotic petroleum in the Earth’s mantle or crust.
The ever curious anaconda asks
“And, all kidding aside — what about it, seriously — how do you explain rare Earth metals’ abundance in oil that far exceeds any concentrations in the surrounding rock?”
Rare earths are very common in petroleum. They are taken out of solution when they contact the hydrocabon and are reduced. I’m surprised you haven’t become familiar with the process in your research.
Google “Uranium Vanadium roll front deposits”:
Volcanic ash and tuff are unstable under atmospheric conditions and will eventually alter to clay or mudstone. Upon alteration, uranium will be released into the groundwater. The uraniferous solutions will circulate through permeable beds until a reductant is encountered. Reductants include disseminated pyrite and organic material like plant remains or hydrocarbons, Sometimes, wood, peat, lignite, and hydrocarbons are completely replaced by black uranium oxides. Organic trash pockets in sandstone can result in the formation of rich ore bodies.
While you are at it, Google vitrinite reflectance, oil window. If you want to debunk biotic oil you need to learn how thermal matuity is calculated.
And Google “source rock, Brazil subsalt”. There’s some great reading on why the temperatures are so low under the salt.
And, since you claim:
“Shale is impermeable, it acts as a trapping structure, not a source.”
Google “shale gas reserves” and explain how all those organic shales such as the Barnnett are producing gas, and how it could have migrated into such impermiable rocks if it came from below. The new drilling and frac technology has opened up 100’s of TCF of gas to be produced from organic shales. Funny how shales without a high biotic organic content don’t produce.
Oh yes, I read your nice acticle by the Russians. They explain the biomarkers by the abiotic oil acting as a solvent as it passes through the source rock. I’m still puzzeled though: why does this abuiotic oil only migrate in basins with an organic source from which to become contaminated? Why are the other basins devoid of hydrocarbon?
Anyway, thanks for the discussion. I needed to read up on the Brazillian stuff. I’m back to finding oil and reading about my climate hobby.
Anaconda
“I understand that is what Petrobas claims”
“Regarding the Brazil oil, the “head guy” has boasted that they “have found oil every time” below the salt.”
Make up your mind Anaconda. Is Petrobras credible or not?
“but it offers hardly any evidence that in those conditions and circumstances and at those depths in the stratographic profile a shallow sea ever existed, 25,000 feet on average below the current sea level a 175 miles out to sea in the Atlantic ocean.”
What’s your theory on how the sediments got there? If you’re hazy on how the rocks got there, how can you be so sure how the oil got there?
“Your sarcastic humor is simply a distraction for not having an answer.”
That’s just downright unfriendly. I’m afraid I can’t get into a partnership with somebody that has an attitude like that. On the other hand, I’ll still sell you that valandium mine and I’ll even throw in my father-in-law’s plans for a perpetual motion machine. They aren’t finished but I’m sure you can get it working in no time. You’ll need that free energy to mine the valandium. It’s heavy, ya know;) Now you might be skeptical about perpetual motion, but I guarantee this device will produce enough free energy to extract all the valandium in the continental U.S.
Doug
“I’ll continue my “content free” discussion. Hard to teach petroleum geology in a paragraph or two.”
Well you tried. But, it might take weeks to cover the stratigraphy and tectonics necessary to provide the context for the things you discussed; at least for some folks.
“It is disturbing how many people here with no in depth knowledge of oil and gas feel qualified to post on the subject. I hope we do better with climate science.”
That’s becoming astonishingly clear and I sure hope we do. I’m gaining a new perspective on some of the climate arguments I’ve seen here.
@ur momisugly D. Patterson:
I appreciate your response. but it is riddled with assumptions that have no scientific verification, they are educated speculations at best, and at worst wild conjecture.
The simple answer is that Science doesn’t have solid answers for the early formation of the Earth. To suggest otherwise is presumptuous.
Face it, Science doesn’t have a strong handle on what is going on, now, in the atmosphere concering the Earth’s climate, how can you or anybody else for that matter have a strong handle on the processes of early Earth formation billions of years ago.
D. Patterson stated: “The Earth’s petroleum systems are well known to have indisputable biotic origins, and we know this by a variety of means up to and including the molecular genetic fragments from the biological organisms which compose the petroleum.”
Your, above, statement is not born out by close inspection of the scientific evidence available.
Did read or review the scientific paper I linked to: Dismissal of the Claims of a Biological Connection for Natural Petroleum authored by J. F. Kenney, et al.
It would appear that you did not. As it goes into detail why your statement, above, is wrong.
Here is an additional scientific report on a Russian oil field, The Drilling & Development of the Oil & Gas Fields in the Dnieper-Donetsk Basin authored by V. A. Krayushkin, et al., which goes into detail on field observations & measurement, it solidly contradicts your assertions:
http://www.gasresources.net/DDBflds2.htm
D. Patterson states: “This is the reason why abiotic oil has not been found to constitute a significant pool of petroleum and remains an implausibe source for the future.”
Your rational as stated, above, is speculation not based on scientific evidence. Geo-physicists know that abundant perodites (a deep crust Earth rock) have carbon and also there are abundant sources of hydrogen (not free hydrogen, of course, but bound up in various chemical molecules in rocks).
D. Patterson states: “Life has had an uncanny ability to seek out and consume or eat hydrocarbons and abiotic oil over the past 4 billion years, leaving too little of the abiotic hydrocarbons free to produce pools of abiotic petroleum in the Earth’s mantle or crust.”
No.
Abiotic Oil formation is an ongoing process.
So-called “fossil” fuel theory is an artifact of primitive hypothesis first proposed over 250 years ago in 1757.
Modern scientific techniques to not support that hypothesis.
The pressures and heat in the shallow sedimentary crust don’t support the “fossil” theory, it is a violation of the Law of Entropy, you can’t get high energy molecules (oil) produced from low energy molecules (organic detritus.
Anaconda (08:39:16) :
I’m not a geologist, but perhaps you can answer a couple questions about abioitic oil. Your strongest case for abiotic oil seems to be from the deepest sources, but I’ll assume there’s some depth that “cokes” oil, leaving carbon and methane. Apologies if that doesn’t make sense, let’s just stick to oil.
We have natural seeps for deep underground sampling. Volcanoes are one, though I’d imagine oil and magma don’t mix well and looking for abiotic oil around volcanoes at plate boundaries and at hot spots would be unproductive. So those might be “too deep” or at least “too hot.”
Another source are undersea vents. The water in “black smokers” is several hundred degrees, oil ought to be able to survive that. They are a source of several metals, so oil found there would help confirm that association.
While I haven’t googled for it, I’ve never heard of oil from vents and I’d expect it to be pretty much obvious in any samples people have gathered for analysis in the ship’s labs.
@ur momisugly Ric Werne:
Your comment is welcome.
Ric Werne states: “…but I’ll assume there’s some depth that “cokes” oil, leaving carbon and methane.”
It really depends on the pressure, as you note oil has been found as deep as 30,000 feet deep below the salt layer with increadible pressure, it would seem that there are cases of oil being “cracked” into natural gas (methane).
Ric Werne states: “Volcanoes are one, though I’d imagine oil and magma don’t mix well and looking for abiotic oil around volcanoes at plate boundaries and at hot spots would be unproductive. So those might be “too deep” or at least “too hot.”
You would be surprised how many times in the historic record hydrocarbons are associated with volcanic activity and solfetaric vents (sulfur vents). There are numerous scientific accounts of hydrocarbons and bitumens found next to volcanic by 19th century scientists. This is still true today.
So-called “fossil” fuel proponents almost always do their best to disavow this association because if the general public ever associated oil and volcanic activity, the “fossil” fuel gig would be up.
As I mentioned earlier pillow lava (underwater) has been found with solid bitumens (a hydrocarbon) this suggests that without oxygen and under some kind of pressure (what pressure would lava have?) hydrocarbons are fairly stable, much more than generally understood.
Ric Werme states: “Another source are undersea vents. The water in “black smokers” is several hundred degrees, oil ought to be able to survive that. They are a source of several metals, so oil found there would help confirm that association.”
Yes, but mostly as methane. There is significant anticipation of ultra-deepwater, ultra-deep drilling farther out toward the mid-ocean ridges in the faults that run perpendicular to the main mid-ocean ridges.
Interestingly enough to further the vocanic connection, there are asphalt volcanoes on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico in the abyssal part, 9,000 feet deep below sea level where ashpalt (a heavy hydrocarbon) flows out on to the seafloor just like lava, and these have oil and methane too. The area is known to be an old tectonically active region.
“Volacanic gas, get an eruption of power evertime you put your foot to the floor.”
For more reading:
I found http://www.gasresources.net/ (click the introduction tab). One claim is that iron oxide, calcium carbonate, and water at 50 Kbar and 1500°C produced various components of petroleum “in distributions characteristic of natural petroleum.” The pressure corresponds to 100 km below the Earth’s surface, i.e. into the mantle.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the biotic petroleum would generate the same distribution due to similar energy budgets. Nothing I saw precludes biotic petroleum generation.
It may well be that biotic petroleum is easier to prospect for and hence may dominate the successful crustal exploration. Prospecting for abiotic petroleum may depend on explaining how it transfers between mantel and crust (maintaining its makeup along the way).
Pure speculation – plenty of people here know more than I do!
Oh – another test. If petroleum reservoirs are being recharged by abiotic petroleum, then the biological “contaminants” should decline over time since the early draws will have flushed them out.
Small 50 Kbar pressure vessels are not cheap – biofuels are likely more promising than making stuff out of iron ore, limestone and water.
Anaconda (10:11:51) :
“It would appear that you did not. As it goes into detail why your statement, above, is wrong.”
It’s unfortunate you would presumptuously and wrongly assume I was not familiar with the works of Kenney et al. They are well known, and so are their their many self-contradictions, and mis-statements of facts. Unfortunately, your apparent unquestioning faith in their statements does not allow the intrusion of contradictory scientific evidence which you incorrectly dismiss as “speculation not based on scientific evidence.” Consequently, the discussion of this is well beyond the scope of the topic of this thread. I can only suggest that you study and question the works of Kenney et al until you understand the arguments of their critics and can identify the many mis-statements in the works of Kenney et al.
You may want to begin your studies by asking how it is possible for the basalts originating in the mantle to be so highly deficient in hydrogen while also allegedly serving as a rich source of hydrogen for the genesis of complex hydrocarbons?
@ur momisugly Doug, et al.:
Dourg states: “Rare earths are very common in petroleum. They are taken out of solution when they contact the hydrocabon and are reduced. I’m surprised you haven’t become familiar with the process in your research.”
What I left out and will state, now, is that these rare Earth metals are common at deeper levels in the crust. So, we come back to the “fossil” theory that oil is organic detritus, supposedly deposited in shallow bodies of water.
So, how do rare Earth metals common in the deep crust and mantle get into a substance that supposedly is a product of surface organic detritus deposition?
Thermal maturity is basically is basically saying the oil didn’t have long enough in the hot environment to “crack” into methane. But tell me how 25 million years is not enough time to “crack” oil into methane?
Doug states: “And Google “source rock, Brazil subsalt”. There’s some great reading on why the temperatures are so low under the salt.”
Read about the 500 dregree Fahrenheit oil and high pressure of Brazil oil from Bloomberg:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aoC91kszkcf4
Doug states: “Google “shale gas reserves” and explain how all those organic shales such as the Barnnett are producing gas, and how it could have migrated into such impermiable rocks if it came from below. ”
That is a good question.
but you know what is interesting, before 3D seimic less than 1out of 10 bore holes produced oil, in other word more than 1 out of 10 were dry holes. So actually it was the other way around. A lot of supposedly organic detritus impregnated sedimentary basins that oil geologists thought should have oil turned out dry.
Imagine that.
Well, I guess if Ric is going to keep this beaten horse alive, I’ll chip in a bit more.
Ric—indeed, there are places in which sediments have becone too hot for the hydrocarconns to survive. Nice oil and gas accumulations end up a scum of graphite.
Anaconda—– Explain this claim to me:
“So-called “fossil” fuel proponents almost always do their best to disavow this association because if the general public ever associated oil and volcanic activity, the “fossil” fuel gig would be up.”
What are you implying here? That if the fools in the oil companies realized they could drill anywhere and find oil, we would have a glut of the stuff? We’ll just bring on one granitic reservoir after another? Siljan ring was another Ghawar, they just keep it a secret?
One thing the oil companies do well is produce oil anywhere they can find it. It is produced fron granite in Viet Nam, diabase sills in Arizona, volcanic ash in Nevada, glacial till in Siberia. They will produce anything they can find and make a profit on. If there were economic deposits of abiotic oil around, they’d be after them.
Here’s a nice article by one of the French researchers I’ve worked with. If you can refute him point by point, have at it.
“The following paper is a critique of the writings of Thomas Gold, written by Jean Laherrere. It is a scientific dialogue and contains many technical terms and references which may be nearly unfathomable to the layperson. However, it is a very important discussion because it lays bare many of the errors in Gold’s arguments.”
http://www.copvcia.com/free/ww3/102104_no_free_pt1.shtml
Anaconda (14:54:37) :
“Imagine that.”
We no longer need to “Imagine that” after your last statements leave no further doubt.
@ur momisugly Doug, et al.:
Doug states: “Oh yes, I read your nice acticle by the Russians. They explain the biomarkers by the abiotic oil acting as a solvent as it passes through the source rock. I’m still puzzeled though: why does this abuiotic oil only migrate in basins with an organic source from which to become contaminated? Why are the other basins devoid of hydrocarbon?”
What your comment betrays is a failure to note that oil pumped from the deepest stratographic levels DID NOT have the so-called “biomakers” in it AT ALL. If oil is a product of organic detritus how would any oil fail to have “biomarkers”?
Doug states: “Why are the other basins devoid of hydrocarbon?”
Simple, sedimentary basins that aren’t above deep fissures or faults don’t have a “source fault” that allows hydrocarbons to rise to the surface. Why are the vast majority of giant and supergiant oil wells above tectonically active faults?
Sandw15 states: “Make up your mind Anaconda. Is Petrobras credible or not?”
The “head guy” is credible for whether they found oil or not, but is not credible about the oil’s origin — he wants to promote the idea of scarcity.
Much as the rest of the oil industry. He knows his “lines”.
If you fellows aren’t all tuckered out from your highly interesting debate, I wonder if you could give me the theory of what happens to coal, gas and oil when the continents undergo the process of Subduction.
(I guess it must be a theory, because there’s no way to get down where the lithosphere dissolves, beneath California, and get hands-on data.)
I gather there’s something called the “accretionary prism,” where sediment is sort of “scraped off” the oceanic lithosphere as it dives beneath the continental plate, (and that is a good place to look for oil.) However I was wondering what happens to the stuff that isn’t scraped off. When it reaches 500 degrees it turns to graphite and methane?
How about diamonds associated with volcanic pipes? Any chance they were once organic carbon?
I don’t yet know enough to take sides in this debate, but I really appreciate hearing the various views. The stuff you argue about opens windows onto the fascinating world under our feet.
Caleb (16:09:45) :
“I wonder if you could give me the theory of what happens to coal, gas and oil when the continents undergo the process of Subduction.”
The upper mantle was enriched with hydrogen compounds by the melt from subducted basaltic ocanic plates and silicate continental plates over the past eons. The oldest known rocks from the mantle 3 to 4.3 billion years old have different compositions from the basaltic rocks coming from the upper mantle in today’s volcanic eruptions. Today’s basaltic rocks indicate enrichment with percentages of hydrogen compounds not present in the earliest such basalts.
Natural diamonds have a composition which indicates they were formed at about the time of the continental plates and earlier.
Anaconda
“So-called “fossil” fuel proponents almost always do their best to disavow this association because if the general public ever associated oil and volcanic activity, the “fossil” fuel gig would be up.”
“The “head guy” is credible for whether they found oil or not, but is not credible about the oil’s origin — he wants to promote the idea of scarcity.
Much as the rest of the oil industry. He knows his “lines”.”
In that case, show the strength of your convictions. Nobody will stop you if you have the stones to go drill a volcano somewhere. People form limited partnerships to drill wells all the time. All you need is a lawyer to draw up the papers and a land man to get the leases. Most drillers are independent contractors – they’ll drill anywhere you want them to. They charge a per day rate. Heck drill in your back yard if you can get the permit. Oh, and you will need a whole lot of money, but there is a surprising number of gullible investors out there. Probably not here or at Andrew’s Geology Blog (they seemed like they got a little tired of you). Try that other site you mentioned…Oil is Mastery. You guys can pool your money and go find yourselves some oil. Have fun.
@ur momisugly Sandw15:
“Do these fuels result always and necessarily in one way from the decomposition of a pre-existing organic substance? Is it thus with the hydrocarbons so frequently observed in volcanic eruptions and emanations, and to which M. Ch. Sainte-Claire Deville has called attention in recent years? Finally, must one assign a parralel origin to carbonaceous matter and to hydrocarbons contained in certain meteorites, and which appear to have an origin foreign to our planet? These are questions on which the opinion of many distinguished geologists does not as yet appear to be fixed.” — Marcellin Berthelot, chemist, 1866
Sandw15, I appreciate the humor, but the fact is that exploring for oil is expensive — ultra-deepwater, ultra-deep drilling like off the coast of Brazil or the Gulf of Mexico is very expensive, a slight profit is achieved at $70 a barrel (mostly treading water).
I have no problem with oil companies making a profit — they have to, but claiming scarcity when none exists is bogus.
Note that the, above, French chemist, very respected in his time, comments on all the hydrocarbons associated with volcanic activity. The point is simple enough, the general public knows how powerful vocanic activity is, and if hydrocarbons are associated with that most basic of geological processes, they will also know that no physical shortages of oil are in store in the near future (actually within the economic horizon of 30 years at least).
The French chemist goes on:
“One can, then, conceive the production, by purely mineral means, of all natural hydrocarbons. The intervention of heat, of water, and of alkaline metals — lastly, the tendency of hydrocarbons to unite together to form the more condensed material — suffice to account for the formation of these curious compounds. Moreover, this formation will be continuous because the reactions which started it are renewed incessantly.” — Marcellin Berthelot, chemist, 1866
This is indeed the case.
Oil is abiotic — get to know it.
Anaconda
“Sandw15, I appreciate the humor, but the fact is that exploring for oil is expensive”
Hey, this time I’m not kidding. I live in Texas. Every time the price of oil goes up guys come out of the woodwork with oil prospects and their sister opens a pipe yard and their brother-in-law starts an oil-field construction company and his Uncle Joe gets himself a broken-down drilling rig. (OK so I can’t resist a little hyperbole). Ditto for Louisiana only more so. And “Big Oil” could care less.
Your arguments don’t require you to drill offshore to prove your point. You can drill for onshore shallow abiotic oil. According to you it should be just about everywhere. Leases will be cheap if you stay away from proven production.
Just remember Columbus.
When he left Spain, he didn’t know where he was going. When he got here, he didn’t know where he was. When he got back he didn’t know where he had been. And he did it all on borrowed money.
In other words, use somebody else’s money.