MEMES
Oil shortage
Nowadays, it’s more or less totally taken for granted that oil + gas + coal all came from decaying vegetable matter in past aeons. Open any encyclopedia, school textbook, etc and it will explain the origins in detail. What they don’t explain is that it’s just a theory – not a proven fact. Here’s some problems with the theory.
In the past couple of decades, there have been numerous ultra-deep ( 8Km plus ) drillings into the so-called ‘foundation rocks’ in various parts of the planet. The boreholes are basically going through solid quasi-volcanic rocks the whole way. Guess what ? They can pump oil from 5Km deep from the middle of a mass of solid granite. There is no possibility that decayed plant matter has ever been there, or anywhere nearby. There are no sedimentary rocks.
Ever cracked open a piece of coal and found a fossil leaf inside ? They’re pretty common. But, howcome the coal, which, we are told is the product of decayed organic matter and massive geological pressure and temperatures – has a preserved leaf in it ? Why didn’t that particular leaf get liquefied and turned to carbon just like the rest of the stuff ?
The carbon-based deposits, coal > oil > gas etc are usually found in that order. In other words, the deeper you drill the *lighter* the deposits get. Ultra-deep drillings tend to find very lightweight and highly purified compounds – they never come across coal. If the deposits all got there from the gradual deposition of plant and other biological remains, wouldn’t the lighter materials tend to be on top ?
Perhaps the most obvious hole in the theory is the absolutely mind-boggling amounts of the stuff which we’ve found so far. Especially coal. Even in the UK, where coal-mining has all but been abandoned, the *known* reserves could power the entire country for another 200 years ! ( not that that would be a good idea of course ) The quantity of coal / oil / gas / tars / bitumens which we already know about is far too gargantuan to have been the product of previous life-forms. Life-on-Earth simply hasn’t been around long enough.
Lastly, recent advances in remote sensing devices have made it possible to analyse the radiation reflected from objects in deep space. The ‘signatures’ of various chemical compounds show up unmistakably in the data. And so far, many of the objects analysed, especially comets, are shown to be carrying hydrocarbons. Many comets are now suspected to have cores which are essentially tar. In short, just about any direction in which the sensors are pointed, hydrocarbons, and other organic molecules, can be detected, ( as an aside, a vast intergalactic cloud, light years across, was recently discovered to be composed almost completely of ethanol - drink – drink ! ) If other spatial bodies have vast hydrocarbon reserves – why not Earth ? Perhaps it’s been there since the formation of the planet ?
One factor in the taught-in-schools version is however, indisputable. Most of the oil / gas / coal contains chemicals which are definitely – beyond doubt – the product of living cells. But, as with the previous example, recent research has popped this balloon as well. Until the discovery of the ‘Black Smokers’ - deep-sea volcanic vents - it was thought that life couldn’t possibly exist in ultra-caustic conditions. No light, very little oxygen, and temperatures which can melt plastic. But, in fact, as we now know, life is there in abundance. And the recent deep drillings into solid rock have found bacteria happily growing ( albeit very slowly ) 5Km inside solid granite. The bugs are everywhere, and of course, they inhabit the oil-rich rocks too . . .
The ‘Abiotic’ theory - that oil did *not* originate from a fossil source - is more than a hundred years old, but it seems to have largely vanished from the scientific horizon. You won’t hear many geology experts talking publicly about the above mentioned problems. If they were to ‘fess up, to the much more interesting scenario - that we ( and they ) have no idea where it all came from – then they wouldn’t be experts anymore would they ?
As the techniques for deeper drilling and surveying get ever more sophisticated, our guess is that we’ll find more and more hydrocarbon deposits. There may be temporary shortages, but we’ll still be finding it many, many, years into the future.
Planet Earth is basically swimming in the stuff.
Update Mar 2005.
The Huygens probe has now splashed-down into the 'seas' of Saturn’s largest moon Titan. Observations by various astronomical organisations are now of the opinion that seas of Titan are almost certainly vast reserves of liquid hydrocarbons. Let’s hazard a guess they weren’t formed by decaying lifeforms. You never know though.
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/
