From the University of Michigan, and the “department of models that can’t ever be verified”, comes this claim
![F7.large[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/f7-large1.jpg?quality=83)
ANN ARBOR–As much as two-thirds of Earth’s carbon may be hidden in the inner core, making it the planet’s largest carbon reservoir, according to a new model that even its backers acknowledge is “provocative and speculative.”
In a paper scheduled for online publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week, University of Michigan researchers and their colleagues suggest that iron carbide, Fe7C3, provides a good match for the density and sound velocities of Earth’s inner core under the relevant conditions.
The model, if correct, could help resolve observations that have troubled researchers for decades, according to authors of the PNAS paper.
The first author is Bin Chen, who did much of the work at the University of Michigan before taking a faculty position at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The principal investigator of the project, Jie Li, is an associate professor in U-M’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.
“The model of a carbide inner core is compatible with existing cosmochemical, geochemical and petrological constraints, but this provocative and speculative hypothesis still requires further testing,” Li said. “Should it hold up to various tests, the model would imply that as much as two-thirds of the planet’s carbon is hidden in its center sphere, making it the largest reservoir of carbon on Earth.”
It is now widely accepted that Earth’s inner core consists of crystalline iron alloyed with a small amount of nickel and some lighter elements. However, seismic waves called S waves travel through the inner core at about half the speed expected for most iron-rich alloys under relevant pressures.
Some researchers have attributed the S-wave velocities to the presence of liquid, calling into question the solidity of the inner core. In recent years, the presence of various light elements–including sulfur, carbon, silicon, oxygen and hydrogen–has been proposed to account for the density deficit of Earth’s core.
Iron carbide has recently emerged as a leading candidate component of the inner core. In the PNAS paper, the researchers conclude that the presence of iron carbide could explain the anomalously slow S waves, thus eliminating the need to invoke partial melting.
“This model challenges the conventional view that the Earth is highly depleted in carbon, and therefore bears on our understanding of Earth’s accretion and early differentiation,” the PNAS authors wrote.
In their study, the researchers used a variety of experimental techniques to obtain sound velocities for iron carbide up to core pressures. In addition, they detected the anomalous effect of spin transition of iron on sound velocities.
They used diamond-anvil cell techniques in combination with a suite of advanced synchrotron methods including nuclear resonant inelastic X-ray scattering, synchrotron Mössbauser spectroscopy and X-ray emission spectroscopy.
###
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Our solar system is incredibly rich in hydrocarbons (look at the outer planets). There is no reason to believe the Earth did not get to keep a miniscule amount (relatively speaking) buried in her core. That theory is much more believable than dead dinosaurs piling up and forming pools of liquid.
Well actually the real biological theory is dead plankton but we get your point.
Matt you need to read the discussion above. As AP pointed out earlier this study doesn’t lend credence to the nonsense, that despite all the geological evidence, abiotic sources of petroleum are in anyway significant.
M Courtney
December 2, 2014 at 4:17 am
“No-one doubts the reality of oil from biological sources.
It’s whether it can be produced abiotically that is questioned.
Me, I find it reasonable.
But there is no reason to think it would be produced at a layer that it is economical to extract from. As such the theory may be right but even if it is – it is of no practical use for prospecting.”
____________________________
We live in the present, the predicted “future”, in which the doomsayer pundits told us there would be no cheap, abundant oil. The endless parade of exotic iron around the nearby hot rod shop is just one indicator that the fun continues and won’t likely end, as long as we have the will and insight to make it happen.
Alan Robertson, I am not a pessimist about man’s ability to adapt.
It has been obvious that the Peak Oil alarm was folly for years. We have run out so often now without anyone but the greens noticing. And now OPEC are currently having to open the taps to try and kill off innovation before the innovation kills them.
But that does not apply to abiotic oil.
Abiotic oil (if it exists, and I suspect it does) has the same flaw as wind or solar power. It is not concentrated in a convenient place. Abiotic oil will be created all over the place at all levels and so needs to be foraged not hunted. That won’t be economic, ever.
As I say, if we have the ability to get at oil at the edge of the mantle, why not use the geothermal energy that’s there? We’ would have solved our energy needs already by the time we can get the abiotic oil.
Apart from the abiotic oil we’ve already found that is indistinguishable from normal oil because it is where we expected to find oil anyway.
I don’t want to get heavily involved in the discussion over the source of most petroleum on the planet, but I will note that Gold’s ideas that oil was produced without the presence of plants did not require that it be abiotic. In fact, his ideas, which were supported by the results of at least one deep drill hole (in Sweden, I think) were essentially that methane interacted with bacteria in the upper few km of the crust to produce liquid hydrocarbons. Thus, the oil was not really abiotic.
That said, there is no substantive evidence that most of the oil we know about is derived from such a process, which is not to say it was not, just that there’s little evidence of such.
A carbon core isn’t as absurd as it may seem at first glance. Carbon is one of the most abundant heavy elements fused in the centers of stars during their lifetimes. After supernovae distributes it into space, all that carbon has to go somewhere. From that perspective it’s far more likely the earth should have a carbon core than an iron one, as we’ve always been taught. Iron is produced in much less abundance.
Carbon-12 is not a heavy element unless you are talking about hydrogen fusion. It’s density (2.6 for graphite at STP) is far lower than iron or nickel (7.8 and 8.9). I think the authors could do a check calculation on the rate of light carbon buoyancy-driven escape from the core to higher strata. How much carbon or iron carbide is left after 4 billion years?
In stellar evolution every element other than helium that is fused within stars is considered a heavy element. The relative abundance of fused heavy elements is the point, not its density. Far more carbon is produced in stars than iron. That’s what makes a carbon core for earth a reasonable concept. You’d also expect a lot of hydrocarbons around because hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe.
You mean like the interior of the Sun?
oh come on – everyone knows that the Earth is hollow. That’s where the UFO’s come from!!!
LOL Don’t you know it’s not nice to lob a “funny bomb” into the middle of a p___ing contest. You could bruise egos. You also owe me a new keyboard.
That’s funny.
I was a planetarium director in Eugene, Oregon many years ago. One day, a hollow-earther came in and started talking about it. I had the naive thought that I could easily correct the error of his ways. After all, I reasoned, I had an undergraduate degree in astronomy and physics. Should be a piece of cake, I thought.
That day I learned never to confront a person who has spent a lifetime rationalizing a crazy belief when you aren’t fully prepared. You will lose.
It’s exactly how AGW alarmists think about skeptics of their theory.
Now hold on there.
I’ve got a globe on my desk, one of those big spinning ones. I took it out of the bracket, and sure enough, you are right! There’s a hole in the top and the bottom and you can see clear through the thing. It absolutely is hollow!
But I can’t see any flying things in there. I even held up a flash light at one end while looking through the other. It is COMPLETELY hollow, there’s nothing flying around in there at all. So the UFO’s must come from somewhere else.
Oh wait… unless they only come home at night? I’ll check again when it gets dark.
According to what I was told, inside earth there is a mini-sun at the center and all the hollow earth inhabitants, plants and animals live on the surface of the inner shell. It has its own weather systems. That explains why you couldn’t see them when looking in your globe, but not why your weren’t blinded by brilliant sunlight. Perhaps human-caused global warming within the hollow earth has already killed everything off and blotted out its tiny sun. Gasp!
Hydrocarbons seep up all around the earth. The dispersion is mediated by faults, the distance down to the shield, and subduction zones.
The amount held in a region is related to the path the Hydrocarbons follow as they rise and the resistance they hit as they near the surface.
In the deserts along the Mediterranean, the sedimentary layers are very tight, allowing very little of the rising hydrocarbons to escape. Lying along one of the most prolific routes which the deeply formed hydrocarbons rise along with the tight sedimentary layer gives the desert states massive stores of hydrocarbons which are continuously being supplemented.
The Saudis do not disclose, or they may not even be sure of the rate of replenishment, but they have a massive reserve which they can profitably produce for $10.00 per barrel.
As they did in the ’80’s, they can bankrupt any attempt to take their market share.
Carter’s attempt at solar, wind, and processed food (corn) were shut down. The current bout will be also.
Areas that do not have a tight cap,such as the Canadian tar sands allow the lighter ends of hydrocarbons to evaporate, leaving only the heavy products.
Think of the earth as a large petroleum distillery.
Natural gas seeps up all around the earth, as mapped by the us government. where the shield is deep and
and the sedimentary layer is fractured and there is adequate moisture, microbes convert most of it to topsoil. as seen in the Midwest of the US.
There is a simple ‘fix’ to the Saudi monopoly practices ( predatory pricing).
Put a tarriff on imported oil (perhaps even just oil from outside N. America so Mexico and Canada are ‘inside’) such that the “landed price” can not be below $80 / bbl. At any price over $80, the tarriff is zero, so has not effect on price of fuels. At any price below $80 (for example, $65 ) the tarriff raises the price to $80 (so a $15 / bbl tax on $65 oil) and prices hold about where they are now (i.e. not much happens).
Yet the oil PRODUCERS domesitcally and the alternatives (i.e. synthetic oils and shale oils and…) are all safe from a Saudi driven shake out with predatory priceing.
No, it will never be done. Too much Saudi money funding congress critters and PACS and “green movments” and…
Perhaps we should similarly protect our manufacturing and service sectors.
Jerry,
Canada doesn’t have tar sand, it has oil sand. Tar is the end product of distillation, oil is the feedstock. Oil is found in your fuel tank and your crankcase, tar is found in the asphalt under your car. The difference between tar and oil is important and not trivial.
well that cinches it, we need to nuke the core to prevent carbon release.
M. Courtney, we expect to find oil under sedimentary layers (as I describe above) because that is where man first encountered it and where the largest and easiest to tap were produced.
In Pennsylvania, oil was running out of the ground and into the rivers. In the Middle East, springs of petroleum have been burning for thousands of years
As oil is searched for in deeper formations, it has been found and produced.
The Russians have found natural gas at 40,000 ft.
The first shortage of oil was ~1856. Increased financial incentive and technology have solved every hydro carbon shortage since.
The people who proclaimed peak oil did not study history, or they would not have made their unfortunate proclamation.
Peak oil is not about whale oil. Nor is it about how much is left and ‘running out’. It is about annual rate of extraction. The question is when, not whether, an eventual peak including unconventional oil sources (primarily Orinoco tar sands, Athabascan bitumen sands, source rock shales) is reached. The conventional ool production peak (API>10 from reservoir rock not source rock) was reached in 2008, just as predicted in 1971. An important question in terms of lead time for adaptation to liquid tranportation fuel alternatives. A number of such questions areexpressly addressed in the energy essays portion of Blowing Smoke. Whether you agree with the conclusions or not, it appears you would be well served by familiarizing yourself with the underlying facts and geophysics.
Rud Istvan, do you have a Kindle author’s page? Hopefully with contact info? Thank you kindly.
E.M. Smith, create an artificially high price for a something and the market will give you a surplus, as we found out when Nixon and Carter tried to control the price of oil in the ’70’s.
Reagan freed the price and after a short, steep rise, the price fell like a stone.
The current surplus was allowed by Opec’s artificilaly high price, not market forces.
The distortion in the market has been caused by Opec and big oil and the greenies wanting the world to believe that hydrocarbons are rarer and more valuable than they actually are and calling them fossil fuels
means that they are finite rather than renewable (on natures schedule).
Jerry,
Please note that this is an adaptive tariff that does not create an artificially high price. In fact, it does nothing to prices inside the defined source oil boundary (either USA or N.America as you like it). There is a fully competitive market inside the bounds. (That is why it only applies to imports from outside the bounds…)
Furthermore, it does nothing to increase price above what it has been for most of the last decade (or two?). Most of the time the tariff does absolutely nothing. Even for OPEC imports. So it will not and can not create an over supply via a price control (as it is not a price control). That is why it only is applied once a price threshold is reached. Nixon and Carter were not doing flexible import tariffs, they were doing domestic price limits / controls. Very different beasts with very different effects. A price control breaks market signals. The import tariff (and one that is rarely imposed at all) leaves market price signals intact (other than removing the ‘die now’ signal from OPEC feeding an oil glut).
What it does do is provide a “countervailing force” to the OPEC monopoly when they decide to try predatory pricing strategies to destroy competitive supply. Only when they drop prices (from the excessive monopoly price they desire) via high production rates and those prices reach levels destructive to our domestic producers; only then would a price floor via that tariff be imposed. (And even that only applies to imported oil from outside the bounds – USA or NAFTA). It is a very focused tool that does little to the domestic market but thwarts the ability to create a price crash by OPEC.
What it does do is assure minor players inside the boundary that they can not be run out of business via the giant monopoly of OPEC artificially pushing prices down. (IF you think they are not artificially pushed down, see the recent OPEC announcement that they were “defending their market share” via continued pumping. That is an explicit statement that ‘price be damned’ they are going to drive someone else out of business. Then they can put the price back up later. This has been done before…)
There are dozens and dozens of observations and analysis results that support the assertion that the abiotic theory for the ‘formation’ of ‘natural’ gas and oil is correct and that we are not going to run out of liquid petroleum or ‘natural’ gas.
I would welcome a debate concerning this subject and can defend Thomas Gold’s hypothesis with observations and analysis. (Note there are dozens and dozens of Russian peer reviewed papers to support Gold’s hypothesis. Gold’s hypothesis is not new (a number of senior Russian scientists formally criticized Gold for not not giving Russian and Ukrainian scientists create for the deep earth CH4 hypothesis). Note the deep earth CH4 hypothesis is used by the Russians to find ‘natural’ gas. The Russians have developed specialized equipment for very, very deep drilling. Note the major oil companies have found massive ‘natural’ gas deposits in very, very deep locations.
Please explain why there is the same ratio of heavy metals in disconnected fields in a region (for example the Alberta fields and the Saskatchewan fields). Why is there heavy metals in the oil? The deep earth CH4 source of petroleum hypothesis provides and explanation for those observations. The deep earth hypothesis provides a pressure source to force the oil through deep mantel rock were it picks up the heavy metals and then moves to the disconnected local field reservoirs.
The deep earth CH4 hypothesis explains why the fraction of noble gases in the atmosphere does not match that found in comets. The big splat removed the light elements from the upper regions of the earth’s mantel and most of the gas (noble gases in particular) in the primitive atmosphere. The fact that the earth is 70% covered with water and the amount of water has increased not decreased with time is explained by the deep CH4 source for liquid petroleum and ‘natural’ gas. The solar wind strips hydrogen from the atmosphere (dissociated H2O). If there was not a continual new source of hydrogen into the atmosphere the earth would be a dry lifeless planet. The CH4 from the deep earth source dissociates in the atmosphere forming H2O and CO2.
The oceans are saturated with very, very, low ratio C12/C13 methane which indicates CH4 continues to be released in the ocean.
As I noted above the alternative to the deep earth CH4 hypothesis is the late veneer hypothesis where comets from a different source than the comets that formed the sun provides the source material for hte earth’s atmosphere and light elements for the atmosphere. The late veneer hypothesis requires the early earth to have a atmosphere density similar to Venus. The geological record does not support the assertion that the early earth had atmosphere of similar density to Venus (under very high pressure chemical reactions are different so there would be geological evidence if there was a very high early earth atmosphere pressure.)
The late veneer hypothesis requires a weird different comet source (there is no observational evidence for the different comet source) to try to explain the why earth’s atmosphere is anomalously low in noble gases as compared to comets or the sun. The late veneer hypothesis requires two independent sources of comets to form the earth (one the comets which now rain on the earth and match the solar composition) and a second comet source that fortuitously provides the late veneer atmosphere of the earth and moves away so it is no longer observed.
The deep earth CH4 hypothesis explains the composition of elements in the earth’s atmosphere. I notice there is no one here or in the peer reviewed literature attempting to defend the late veneer hypothesis in a holistically manner (i.e. acknowledging that a different source of comets is required and the problem of explaining why the different source of comets disappeared), The late veneer hypothesis is not correct (people trying to defend the conversion of plant residue to massive deposits of ‘natural’ gas or liquid petroleum skip the problems of trying to explain the formation and composition of the atmosphere. Note Thomas Gold was a Nobel winning astrophysicist who specialized in planetary formation. There must be a physical explanation for all observations.
There is the fact some major oil fields are refilling which indicates the fields in question are fed by massive lower reservoirs of liquid petroleum. That makes sense as more oil seeps naturally into the ocean each year than is carried by tankers on the surface of the ocean. The liquid petroleum fields in question are still being filled if there is are still connections to their deep earth CH4 source. That is true for some reservoirs and not for others.
In the high latitudes of the planet there is evidence of massive ‘natural’ gas deposits which have not been tapped. We are not going to run out of petroleum or natural gas.
http://www.rense.com/general63/refil.htm
http://www.wnd.com/2005/12/33676/
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Are-Oil-Wells-Recharging-Themselves.html
Are Oil Wells Recharging Themselves?
Drill baby, drill! (LOL!)
With the South Park “Hippie Driller” 🙂
Great. All that nice black carbon. But how to get it out? After all, the Earth’s core is millions of degrees hot, according to….who?
Rubik’s Cube In Center Of Earth? Computer Simulations Support New Model Of Earth’s Core:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080208091314.htm
What about this. Any offers?
Earth’s core is melting … and freezing
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110518131421.htm
Steven Mosher December 2, 2014 at 11:18 am
must you take facts as facts?
look around, there are only three dimensions. it’s a fact.
Oh really? Somebody better call Sheldon and Leonard to let them know!
making it the largest reservoir of carbon on Earth.
QUICK, WHACK A TAX ON IT.
At one time or another, many different elements have been suggested to reside in the Earth’s core.
For those who advocate a non-biologic origin of fossil fuels, know that living organisms strongly fractionate the carbon isotopes, a fractionation also found in fossil fuels. Besides, where else would all that past plant life have gone?
Well, wherever our coal and oil came (comes?) from, I’m all for not calling them “fossil fuels” but rather our “core” energy fuels.
Coal might with warrant be called fossil, & probably some oil & gas, too. Actual fossils of living things are found within coal seams. Its relation to peat is well established.
The issue is whether oil & gas are also produced abiotically as well as via the remains of once living things.
Sorry. I forgot the “8-)”.
Along with nuclear, they are the reliable core of our practical energy supplies.
Maybe I’m just fossilized myself to have need of the symbol. I also just wanted to mention coal as clearly of biological origin, which fact may have colored scientific thinking about liquid & gaseous hydrocarbons, although they all are clearly associated often.
Coal, oil, and gas form a continuum of size and complexity of organic molecules, and all are the result of decomposition of complex living molecules by heat, pressure, and possibly micro-organisms. Oil and gas can and do migrate away from the point of origin. Oil pools when its movement is blocked by an impenetrable rock layer; gas moves easier and farther, but moves little in shale (why fracking is used).
Here is an interesting connection. About 300 million years ago, plants developed the ability to make cellulose and lignin, the largest organic molecules that make tall sturdy structures possible. But no existing micro-organisms at that time could break down such molecules. So they accumulated in sediments. Much of the world’s coal and oil were deposited during this period, the late Carboniferous and early Permian (e.g., Permian Basin). When micro-organisms and fungi evolved that could break down such molecules, the rate of fossil fuel deposition greatly lessened.
P.S. Sediments deposit deepest in basins that are sinking. The deepest know sediments today are >15 kilometers in thickness and located in the southern Caspian Sea and in the western Gulf of Mexico. But sediments don’t stay where they are placed. Tectonic activity can move them up (into mountains) or way down into the deeper crust, and may even intrude igneous rock like granite partially over them.
milodoharlain
The fossils found in coal are formed the same way the fossils in the petrified forest were, just with different chemicals.
Studies of Titan by satellite instruments show coal fields in addition to the lakes of hydrocarbons.
I have not been to Ireland to measure them, but I hypothesize that peat grows so well because of fertilization of the bogs by natural gas flows.
OK, if presumed “tholins” of its dunes count as coal. Unless you refer to some other discovery or presumed detection.
IMO Carbonaceous hydrocarbon deposits are satisfactorily explained by the dearth of fungi during that period.
http://science.energy.gov/ber/highlights/2012/ber-2012-06-a/
I have more direct experience of white rot fungus than I would really have liked.
I have been to Ireland. It is almost a perfect place for plant growth — not too hot, not too cold, abundant moisture. You never saw so many shades of green. There is a reason it’s called the Emerald Isle.
Where the “Coal Measures” which served to define the Carboniferous Period were laid down, it was like that only much more so. For starters, it was tropical:
http://www.scotese.com/newpage4.htm
And there were not the plethora of fungi we have today rapidly to break down woody matter.
So who would have thunk it; Earth has a steel core, and NOT an Iron core.
See Dr. Brown, above.
Many iron meteorites represent the cores of small, but separated (differentiated) bodies. Iron meteorites are much like steel, containing not only iron, but nickel, carbon, and other metals.
See the CB (nickel-iron) group of carbonaceous chondrites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonaceous_chondrite#CB_group
I am glad there are people discussing the Gold hypothesis. You may believe it or otherwise but Gold has some extremely intriguing ideas in his very readable ‘The Deep Hot Biosphere’.
I’m agnostic at this point, but would great if the Russian & Ukrainian scientists & Gold prove correct. I don’t discount the hypothesis & it has always appealed to me as at least plausible, but would like to see more evidence.
Isn’t there an obvious connection between biotic and abiotic hydrocarbons? During the Carboniferous, there was possibly lots of abiotic carbon being emitted from the mantle as CO2, methane, etc.
A basic principle of life is to consume all available resources. During the Carboniferous, plants went crazy sucking up all that carbon and creating the huge deposits of biotic fossil fuels we see today.
After emissions backed off, so did plant growth and here we are today. We see the immediate and measurable increase in vegetation due to CO2 additions. Why is is so hard to figure out? Unless you don’t want to.
The standard, if not “consensus”, view is that the spread of large land plants during the Devonian & Carboniferous (originally called the “coal measures”) drew down the high levels of atmospheric CO2 which existed earlier in the Phanerozoic (the “Welsh” Cambrian, Ordovician & Silurian Periods). The lack of fungi meant that this vegetation lay in coal swamps.
I am pretty sure once researchers actually get to the earths core, they’ll find a McDonalds there.
Nah!
It’ll be a Starbucks … or a Walmart (maybe with a McDonalds inside).
All that dreadful carbon! We must get rid of it somehow, or we’ll be even more totally doomed than than we already are. (Which is totally.)