Abiotic oil
A study published in Science
Magazine today presents new evidence supporting the abiotic theory for the
origin of oil, which asserts oil is a natural product the Earth generates
constantly rather than a “fossil fuel” derived from decaying ancient forests and
dead dinosaurs.
The lead scientist on the study ? Giora
Proskurowski of the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington in
Seattle ? says the hydrogen-rich fluids venting at the bottom of the Atlantic
Ocean in the Lost City Hydrothermal Field were produced by the abiotic
synthesis of hydrocarbons in the mantle of the earth.
The abiotic theory of the origin of
oil directly challenges the conventional scientific theory that hydrocarbons
are organic in nature, created by the deterioration of biological material deposited
millions of years ago in sedimentary rock and converted to hydrocarbons under
intense heat and pressure.
While organic theorists have
posited that the material required to produce hydrocarbons in sedimentary rock
came from dinosaurs and ancient forests, more recent argument have suggested
living organisms as small as plankton may have been the origin.
The abiotic theory argues, in
contrast, that hydrocarbons are naturally produced on a continual basis
throughout the solar system, including within the mantle of the earth. The
advocates believe the oil seeps up through bedrock cracks to deposit in
sedimentary rock. Traditional petro-geologists, they say, have confused the
rock as the originator rather than the depository of the hydrocarbons.
In 2003 and again in 2005,
Proskurowski and his team descended in a scientific submarine to collect liquid
bubbling up from Lost City sea vents.Lost City is
a hypothermal field some 2,100 feet below sea level that sits along the
Mid-Atlantic Ridge at the center of the Atlantic Ocean, noted for strange 90 to
200 foot white towers on the sea bottom.
Proskurowski found hydrocarbons
containing carbon-13 isotopes that appeared to be formed from the mantle of the
Earth, rather than from biological material settled on the ocean floor.
Carbon 13 is the carbon isotope
scientists associate with abiotic origin, compared to Carbon 12 that scientists
typically associate with biological origin.
Our findings illustrate that the
abiotic synthesis of hydrocarbons in nature may occur in the presence of
ultramafic rocks, water and moderate amounts of heat,” Proskurowski wrote.
The study also confirmed a major
argument of Cornell University physicist Thomas Gold, who argued in his book
“The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil Fuels” that micro-organisms found
in oil might have come from the mantle of the earth where, absent
photosynthesis, the micro-organisms feed on hydrocarbons arising from the
earth’s mantle in the dark depths of the ocean floors.
Affirming this point, Proskurowski
concluded the article by noting, “Hydrocarbon production by FTT could be a
common means for producing precursors of life-essential building blocks in ocean-floor
environments or wherever warm ultramafic rocks are in contact with water.”
Finding abiotic hydrocarbons in the
Lost City sea vent fluids is the second discovery in recent years adding weight
to the abiotic theory of the origin of oil.
As WND reported in 2005, a NASA
probe to Titan, the giant moon of Saturn, discovered abundant Carbon-13 methane
that the agency declared to be abiotic in origin.
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