
Originally Posted by
Aaron Gustaveson
Im sure it's not just you but I was asking you. First step in doing some homework and learning for myself.
Wiki has an entry but says in the second sentence,
"The two principal abiogenic petroleum hypotheses, the deep gas hypothesis of Thomas Gold and the deep abiotic petroleum hypothesis, have been scientifically discredited and are obsolete"
First time Ive ever heard anyone suggest that wiki is conservative.
Where did you get your knowledge of geology and chemistry?
How do you access scientific journals, most cost money?
I have degrees in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Geology. Wikipedia is extremely conservative. And journals do not cost much money; when you are an engineering professional you can afford that kind of thing. It's also common to have access to them when you are a student. It's also common for corporations to subscribe to journals and grant access to their employees. Also many journals will give you the abstracts for free and allow you to purchase papers on a per-paper basis. This way you do not have to have full subscriptions to every journal. You can subscribe to the primary ones and then supplement with articles from other journals on a per-subject basis. Finally while my degress are limited to to Geo, CS, and Math, I have spent considerable time studying other sciences. In fact I was considering a degree in Geophysics instead of Geology. I have studied Chemistry as well since it plays a large role in understanding geology. At my school a significant number of chem classes are required for a degree in geology.
"The two principal abiogenic petroleum hypotheses, the deep gas hypothesis of Thomas Gold and the deep abiotic petroleum hypothesis, have been scientifically discredited and are obsolete"
That's incorrect for a number of reasons, but it's nice to see you've at least taken enough initiative to read a wikipedia page. Now keep digging. The truth is there but it does not yield it's bounty easily.
A couple more clues to help in your travels:
1. It's common for oil companies to return to wells that have been completely drained to find significant amounts of petroleum in them. Sometimes they can return multiple times to retrieve more.
2. Many oil companies are now drilling wells far deeper than any organic depositional material is found. Petroleum is often found as an inclusion in granitic deposits far below the level of organic deposition.
3. There are many prominent figures in the field of Geology that have abiotic theories, despite what wikipedia tells you. If you search for them and read their work, it will help you understand both sides of the debate.
Here is a pretty good starter article that has most of the hard science stripped out so it is readable to the layman.
http://www.viewzone.com/abioticoilx.html
To be honest though, if you really want to understand the subject, you will need to do extensive homework. Spending a couple hours using google isn't going to do much for you, other than to hopefully show you that there is a great deal of evidence for abotic oil including studies which have produced it. It's kind of like Climate Change. Everyone thinks they know about it, what's true, and what's not. But almost no one has actually studied the science at all. They don't really know much of anything, which terrifies them, and leads them to think they know everything.
Let me try to be as simple and clear as I can about how it works: All that is required is produce petroleum is calcium carbonate, carbon, and pressure. All 3 of those things are available in abundance in the magma of the Earth. Interestingly once you've studied the subject enough, the idea that petroleum is NOT a mantle product is pretty absurd. It's the calcium carbonate that was what lead geologists astray in the first place. A great deal of it is produced on the surface of the Earth as the result of life. However we have since learned that it is a Mantle product and that is not at all controversial science. To prove the potential Russian scientists have created petroleum using nothing but those things I mentioned. While wikipedia may overlook that kind of work, it is not lost on most open-minded professional geologists working in the oil and gas industry, I can assure you.
In fact NASA itself will confirm abotic methane. Read about Saturn's moon called Titan. NASA will tell you it has oceans of liquid methane. Yet according to a biotic-only production of hydrocarbons that is impossible, unless there was massive amounts of life on Titan. So where did all that methane come from? I'll tell you, it came from the abotic production of hydrocarbons.
Good luck!