Tackling mysteries about carbon, possible oil formation and more deep inside Earth
DENVER, Aug. 28, 2011 — How do diamonds the size of potatoes shoot up at 40 miles per hour from their birthplace 100 miles below Earth’s surface? Does a secret realm of life exist inside the Earth? Is there more oil and natural gas than anyone dreams, with oil forming not from the remains of ancient fossilized plants and animals near the surface, but naturally deep, deep down there? Can the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, be transformed into a pure solid mineral?
Those are among the mysteries being tackled in a real-life version of the science fiction classic, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, that was among the topics of a presentation here today at the 242nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Russell Hemley, Ph.D., said that hundreds of scientists will work together on an international project, called the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO), to probe the chemical element that’s in the news more often than perhaps any other. That’s carbon as in carbon dioxide.
“Concerns about climate change have made millions of people aware of carbon’s role on the surface of the Earth, in the atmosphere and in the oceans,” Hemley said. “The Deep Carbon Observatory will uncover critical information about the movement and fate of carbon hundreds and thousands of miles below Earth’s surface. We call that the deep carbon cycle.”
Hemley said this basic research could have practical implications in the future. Using laboratory equipment that reproduces pressures deep within the Earth, which are thousands to millions of times higher than on the surface, scientists in these labs have discovered a way to convert carbon dioxide into a rock-like material called polymeric carbon dioxide. With further refinements, scientists could enhance its stability closer to the Earth’s surface.
The findings also may lead to new materials for commercial and industrial products. Hemley’s laboratory, for instance, has developed a way to produce “super” diamonds, or high-quality diamonds that are bigger and better than existing ones. Natural diamonds form slowly under the high-pressure, high-temperature conditions that exist deep within the Earth, while today’s synthetic diamonds form under similar conditions in the laboratory. Using a process called chemical vapor deposition, Hemley’s research group made diamonds rapidly and at low pressure. The new diamonds have superior qualities, including extreme hardness, improved transparency and better electrical and temperature properties. The diamonds could lead to improved computer chips that run faster and generate less heat than existing silicon chips, Hemley said. They also show promise for use in advanced cutting-tools, more durable and heat-resistant windows for spacecraft and other applications, he noted.
The DCO project will probe the big mystery about the formation of natural diamonds, including their chemical composition and how they shoot up quickly from deep within the Earth. Scientists can’t directly observe that process at present, as there’s no practical way to travel down 100 miles beneath the surface of the planet. Observations are limited to laboratory simulations of this process for now, said Hemley, who is director of the Geophysical Laboratory at the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Washington, D.C. His laboratory specializes in the chemistry and physics of materials under extreme conditions. Hemley’s presentation at the ACS meeting, entitled “Chemistry of Planetary Gases, Liquids, and Ices in Extreme Environments,” focused on what happens to planetary material under conditions of extreme pressure and temperature, as well as other insights relevant to Earth.
Another area that the DCO will explore is energy. The extent to which hydrocarbons in the Earth form from inorganic processes deep within the Earth rather than only from the fossilized remains of plants and animals remains an important unanswered question. Exploring the nature of carbon deep within the Earth may provide clues on how and to what extent this abiotic process might contribute to energy reserves, Hemley said.
Finally, DCO research has implications in the search for other life forms on Earth and even outer space. Scientists have already identified microbes at about a mile or so deep within the Earth under high temperatures. They suspect that some forms may exist at even deeper levels.
Past studies suggest that bacteria and other life forms can’t survive beyond several thousand atmospheres of pressure. But new studies by scientists in Hemley’s lab show that some bacteria are capable of surviving pressures of up to 20,000 atmospheres. That supports the theory that life might exist in extreme extraterrestrial environments, Hemley noted.
Funding sources for these studies include The Carnegie Institute of Washington, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
The American Chemical Society is a non-profit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
ABSTRACT:
Recent experiments are providing unprecedented insight into the chemistry of planetary materials over a broad range of the conditions, from ambient pressures to several multimegabars and cryogenic temperatures to several thousand degrees. Studies of hydrogen, the most abundant element, reveal new phenomena at high P-T conditions where new chemistry emerges. Related but characteristically distinct behavior is observed in heavier simple diatomics and other planetary volatiles. New phases and chemistry of H2O, CH4, and other planetary ices have been discovered, and the high P-T stability fields of CO2, including melting relations of the polymeric forms, have been documented. Studies of carbon-based materials more broadly are addressing outstanding questions such as the abundance of carbon within our planet, the depth and nature of the deep biosphere, and the implications of the deep carbon cycle for energy and the environment.
R.Shearer:
Show me a crude oil that does not contain biomarkers and the bio preferred C12 to C13 ratio and I would consider abiotic oil theory.
Show me a commercially-exploited oil deposit that doesn’t contain oil percolated through (or covered by) a bunch of biomarker-heavy rocks. There’s also a self-fulfilling prophecy in the ‘biomarker” theories – for pretty much the last 150 years, oil geologists only looked for oil in places that had sedimentary-type rocks on top – at the start, because it was much easier to drill through, but for a long time, it’s because they had figured out the places with those characteristics that most probably held oil, and that it was easy to extract.
There have been oil deposits in Japan (and other places) with the “wrong” C12/C13 ratios, as well as a number of deep-ocean thermal vents with methane content that doesn’t follow the “correct” ratio.
The thing to remember is that, overall, we haven’t looked very deep for oil. Our deepest actual exploration rigs have barely scratched the surface. Claiming that abiogenic oil doesn’t exist because we mostly find biogenic oil is like looking at the grass in your yard and deciding that there can’t be anything but grass all the way down to the bedrock.
The Butcher said:
“Soon we’ll hear about how we evil humans are filling up earth’s core with carbon…and that a super team is volunteering to “Save” us.”
Gisele and the Green Team?
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/12/24/the-decline-of-western-childhood-gisele-as-the-brave-new-%E2%80%9Ccaptain-planet%E2%80%9D/
Nothing, utterly nothing escapes the entwining tentacles of Green ideology. Nothing.
Chris says:
August 29, 2011 at 9:53 am
“Yes, crude oil contains vanadium. I was told once that algae uses vanadium as part of its metabolism. If true, then crude oil is from algae.”
Logical fallacy: affirming the consequent.
cirby says:
August 29, 2011 at 12:10 pm
R.Shearer:
There have been oil deposits in Japan (and other places) with the “wrong” C12/C13 ratios, as well as a number of deep-ocean thermal vents with methane content that doesn’t follow the “correct” ratio.
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All Japanese oil field formations are sedimentary, and quite young, geologically speaking. http://www.japex.co.jp/english/business/japan/field.html
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The thing to remember is that, overall, we haven’t looked very deep for oil. Our deepest actual exploration rigs have barely scratched the surface. Claiming that abiogenic oil doesn’t exist because we mostly find biogenic oil is like looking at the grass in your yard and deciding that there can’t be anything but grass all the way down to the bedrock.
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Until an oil field with definative abiotic orgins is found, it is a theory, based on lab experiments, only. Kinda like the AGW computer models which have no basis in reality. For abioitc oil to have any viability there should be oil found in precambrian rocks, which does not happen except for definatively migrated oil from biological sources.
Show us ONE field that does not have a biological origin.
Chris says:
August 29, 2011 at 9:53 am
Yes, crude oil contains vanadium. I was told once that algae uses vanadium as part of its metabolism. If true, then crude oil is from algae.
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There are lots of metal impurities in oil, and dependant on the field. These include nickel, barium, cadmium, iron, plus many more. Doesn’t mean the oil didn’t come from an organic source. Usually picked up during migration.
R. Shearer says:
August 29, 2011 at 11:23 am
Show me a crude oil that does not contain biomarkers and the bio preferred C12 to C13 ratio and I would consider abiotic oil theory. The abiotists usually counter this by arguing that the abiotic oil had become “contaminated” with microrganisms. How convenient is that? They invoke biology to argue against biology.
Certainly there is abiotic methane and perhaps some small amount of hydrocarbons made via Fisher-Tropsch chemistry around hydrothermal vents and perhaps elsewhere, but where is the evidence against fossil formation of hydrocarbons? Where is the uncontaminated abiotic oil?
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As I wrote at 3.03am
The following reource provides material to answer these questions and many of the others in this thread. This includes details of experimental proof that petroleum products in the ratios in which they are found can be spontaneously generated from CaCO3, FeO and H2O at the temps and pressure found close to the crust/mantle depths.
http://www.gasresources.net/ a short extract:-
“A following paper reviews, and refutes, the claims for “evidence”[sic] for a biological origin of petroleum (commonly asserted in typical British and American textbooks on petroleum geology), – e.g., the “biomarkers,” the observation of optical activity, the slight differences in the abundances of linear molecules with odd (or even) numbers of carbon atoms, the presence of porphyrins, etc. The claims for each (as evidence of a biotic connection for petroleum) are refuted, with unchallenged evidence published in first-rank scientific journals often as long as thirty or forty years ago. The continued, egregious claims of such as “evidence” of a biological origin of petroleum are acknowledged to be fraudulent. A recent paper describes very recent analysis of the thermodynamic stability of the hydrogen-carbon system in circumstances most favorable to the evolution of hydrocarbons, and shows that the hydrocarbons which comprise natural petroleum cannot evolve spontaneously at pressures less than approximately 30 kbar, which pressures correspond to the depths of the mantle of the Earth. In the second instance, this paper describes experimental demonstration of the foregoing theoretical predictions, whereby laboratory-pure solid marble (CaCO3), iron oxide (FeO), wet with triple-distilled water, are subjected to pressures up to 50 kbar and temperatures to 2000 C. With no contribution of either hydrocarbons or biological detritus, the CaCO3-FeO-H2O system spontaneously generates, at the high pressures predicted theoretically, the suite of hydrocarbons characteristic of natural petroleum.”
Steve
R. Shearer says:
August 29, 2011 at 11:23 am
Show me a crude oil that does not contain biomarkers and the bio preferred C12 to C13 ratio and I would consider abiotic oil theory. The abiotists usually counter this by arguing that the abiotic oil had become “contaminated” with microrganisms. How convenient is that? They invoke biology to argue against biology.
Certainly there is abiotic methane and perhaps some small amount of hydrocarbons made via Fisher-Tropsch chemistry around hydrothermal vents and perhaps elsewhere, but where is the evidence against fossil formation of hydrocarbons? Where is the uncontaminated abiotic oil?
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As I wrote at 3.03am
The following reource provides material to answer these questions and many of the others in this thread. This includes details of experimental proof that petroleum products in the ratios in which they are found can be spontaneously generated from CaCO3, FeO and H2O at the temps and pressure found close to the crust/mantle depths.
http://www.gasresources.net/ a short extract:-
“A following paper reviews, and refutes, the claims for “evidence”[sic] for a biological origin of petroleum (commonly asserted in typical British and American textbooks on petroleum geology), – e.g., the “biomarkers,” the observation of optical activity, the slight differences in the abundances of linear molecules with odd (or even) numbers of carbon atoms, the presence of porphyrins, etc. The claims for each (as evidence of a biotic connection for petroleum) are refuted, with unchallenged evidence published in first-rank scientific journals often as long as thirty or forty years ago. The continued, egregious claims of such as “evidence” of a biological origin of petroleum are acknowledged to be fraudulent. A recent paper describes very recent analysis of the thermodynamic stability of the hydrogen-carbon system in circumstances most favorable to the evolution of hydrocarbons, and shows that the hydrocarbons which comprise natural petroleum cannot evolve spontaneously at pressures less than approximately 30 kbar, which pressures correspond to the depths of the mantle of the Earth. In the second instance, this paper describes experimental demonstration of the foregoing theoretical predictions, whereby laboratory-pure solid marble (CaCO3), iron oxide (FeO), wet with triple-distilled water, are subjected to pressures up to 50 kbar and temperatures to 2000 C. With no contribution of either hydrocarbons or biological detritus, the CaCO3-FeO-H2O system spontaneously generates, at the high pressures predicted theoretically, the suite of hydrocarbons characteristic of natural petroleum.”
Steve
Titan’s Surface Organics Surpass Oil Reserves on Earth
Saturn’s orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/cassini-20080213.html
” there’s no practical way to travel down 100 miles beneath the surface of the planet. ”
Either take a trip to Iceland or pcik up that shovel and get to work.
One of the most beneficial and perhaps necessary uses for diamond coatings is for the “First Wall” materials in forthcoming Fusion reactors. For that purpose Diamond would be the ideal liner having a excellent specific heat capacity, teh best heat transfer properties, and resistance to spalling, which contaminates the Plasma with ions.
It would be an excellent base for liquid walls of lithium as well, with its ablity to be laser drilled to provide the “Pores” to secrete the liquid Lithium. Developing “Divertor” materials is an engineering challenge facing Fusion reactor designers.
Steve T says:
August 29, 2011 at 3:01 pm
As I wrote at 3.03am
The following reource provides material to answer these questions and many of the others in this thread. This includes details of experimental proof that petroleum products in the ratios in which they are found can be spontaneously generated from CaCO3, FeO and H2O at the temps and pressure found close to the crust/mantle depths.
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Exactly which “petroleum products” are produced in this experiment? You do realize there are THOUSANDS of individual molecular compounds in oil.
Just because a lab can make it does not mean the mantle is. That would have to be independently confirmed.
So I ask again, which oil field(s) have been shown to have an abiotic origin? None.
Ed Forbes says:
August 29, 2011 at 4:04 pm
Titan’s Surface Organics Surpass Oil Reserves on Earth
Saturn’s orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes.
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Oil is a mixture of thousands of organic hydrocarbons, but not all hydrocarbons are oil. There is no oil on Titan. Methane is a hydrocarbon which can form both from organic sources and inorganic sources. Doesn’t mean oil is abiotic.
http://www.gasresources.net/KitchkaspaperforDCConference.htm
The ‘best estimate’ of the global crude-oil seepage rate was revised to 600000 mt/a, with a range of 200000 and 2000000 mt/a (Kvenvolden and Cooper, 2003). Simple calculations based upon conservative estimates of the average present rates of hydrocarbon seepages from the sea bed establish that the world’s proven reserves of conventional oil should disappear in less than 1 Ma. This fact fundamentally contradicts the conventional time period required by the bio-organic notion of the origin of petroleum
I am not sure I understand your point. You stated earlier:
If most molecular compounds embed during migration and both biotic and abiotic theorized sources involve extensive migration – What differential should we expect to see? How does biotic better explain “thousands” of chemicals. Just trying to see your position, is all. GK
LazyTeenager says:
August 29, 2011 at 6:16 am
Try to be a little less “Lazy” and search the wonderful internet and you be amazed at whatcan be found!
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.econ/2004-08/0126.html
jrwakefield says:
August 29, 2011 at 4:59 pm
“So I ask again, which oil field(s) have been shown to have an abiotic origin? None.”
“There are presently more than 80 oil and
gas fields in the Caspian district alone which were
explored and developed by applying the perspective of
the modern theory and which produce from the
crystalline basement rock.(Krayushkin, Chebanenko et
al. 1994) Similarly, such exploration in the western
Siberia cratonic−rift sedimentary basin has developed
90 petroleum fields of which 80 produce either partly
or entirely from the crystalline basement”
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.econ/2004-08/0126.html
I wasn’t aware that the Huygens probe had the ability to drill, and drill deep on Titan, and roam all over the moon to make sure that there was no oil.
It is purely illogical to claim that there is no oil on Titan.
That applies to much else where Wakefield has claimed absolute negative knowledge.
I think both camps are partiality right. I do not believe that oil is directly from biological process. It is not “carbon” as we know accept what carbon is (plant or animal mater in a simple carbon form) being covered over and then being trapped in rock. There are far to many biological process that work to defeat that path, carbon is far to biological valuable to allowed it sit in a readily usable form and allow it to go to waste.
Instead I think the trapped carbon is calcium carbonate or limestone. I personal believe it is what happen as that the limestone slips back into the mantel from a subduction zone. It would be saturated with water and have lots of biological makers in it. The heat and pressure it is then subjected to would make the chemical change so the carbon in the limestone would produce what we know as hydrocarbons. The carbon come from the limestone and the hydrogen from the water.
I see this process as earth recycling carbon, more precisely calcium carbonate and it has been doing it for a very long time, long before man started pumping that recycled carbon out as oil. This ancient process would allow for the oil to seep back into the sea where it would be consumed by bacteria the consumption of the oil by the bacteria would release some carbon dioxide and the consumption of the bacteria by other animal life would release more carbon dioxide. All this carbon then again rejoin the carbon cycle of life which would lead it to becoming CO2 again. Only to have that CO2 recycled through the food chain of plant and animals only to again bacteria and some types of animals capturing and instead expelling it as CO2 calcifying the carbon and then that calcium carbonate being deposited back to the ocean bottom only subducted back in only to repeat the cycle again.
This process it only part of the carbon cycle that allow for the carbon deposited on the bottom of the oceans to be recycled, another part of the cycle it to force the limestone out of the oceans and back to the surface there weathering and leaching dissolved the carbon so some of it will end back into the atmosphere where it is need. Life on earth is not possible with out carbon and if such cycles did not exist all the carbon on earth would have been lock up in rock a very long time ago. It also explains why we find it all over the place especially along the continental shelf and long dead seas.
Martin luhnan says
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hydrocarbons. The carbon come from the limestone and the hydrogen from the water.
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The stochiometry is wrong. For this to work the oxygen gas to be removed. It’s not so it can’t work.
What would happen to the price of oil if it is proven that it is mostly abiotic? The first thing to fall is peak oil theory, then the price would follow and getting to work would get much cheaper
Pete H says:
August 29, 2011 at 10:11 pm
jrwakefield says:
August 29, 2011 at 4:59 pm
“So I ask again, which oil field(s) have been shown to have an abiotic origin? None.”
“There are presently more than 80 oil and
gas fields in the Caspian district alone which were
explored and developed by applying the perspective of
the modern theory and which produce from the
crystalline basement rock.(Krayushkin, Chebanenko et
al. 1994) Similarly, such exploration in the western
Siberia cratonic−rift sedimentary basin has developed
90 petroleum fields of which 80 produce either partly
or entirely from the crystalline basement”
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.econ/2004-08/0126.html
——————-
Produced from crystalline basement doesn’t mean charged from the basement. I’ve worked on oil fields in Vietanm with granitic reservoirs, however they are all charged from adjacent sedimentary rocks.
It seems that the harder it is to get real data, the more incentive there is to become entrenched in self-assured opinions.
I can’t imagine that the world’s energy producers aren’t familiar with these alternative ideas — maybe it is just economic strategies that keep their public message focus on “fossil fuels”. Perhaps abiotic resources are harder to reach (or their location harder to guesstimate), but they will become economic in a few decades. /just idly speculating
rwakefield says:
August 29, 2011 at 4:59 pm
So I ask again, which oil field(s) have been shown to have an abiotic origin? None.
======
It looks to be remarkably difficult to demonstrate that a particular batch of oil is abiotic. Thomas Gold did manage to produce a small amount (less than 1000 bls total) of liquid hydrocarbons from two wells in Scandinavia that were designed to minimize the chances of the “oil” being biotic. There were a lot of problems with the first well which Gold described as a fiasco, but the second one was much better done.
I personally don’t believe that there are significant amounts of abiotic oil around, because I don’t see how such oil — were it created — would keep from being knocked back down to Methane by heat before it reached a “safe” temperature regime.
I’m pretty impressed with the Geologists. Unlike Climate “Scientists” many geologists seem willing to discuss unorthodox theories even if they do not believe the theories to be true. I’ve read long threads amongst petroleum geologists about abiotic oil. Even though they are pretty much universally highly skeptical, they are polite, base their discussions on facts, do not simply make stuff up, and do not practice “proof by repeated assertion”.
Steve Schaper
No, it is purely logical to claim there is no oil on Titan. None has been observed and there’s no proven way in which it could have been generated.
That’s logic for you…
Alex the skeptic says:
August 30, 2011 at 2:53 am
What would happen to the price of oil if it is proven that it is mostly abiotic? The first thing to fall is peak oil theory, then the price would follow and getting to work would get much cheaper
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No because you do not understand what peak oil is about. It is NOT about how much oil is in the ground, it NEVER has been. Peak oil is about FLOW RATES. Assuming abiotic to be true, it’s rate of oil formation must be very very very slow. No where near fast enough to keep up with our rate of extraction.