Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 12:16:36 +0100 (MET)
Subject: M-G: UNITE! Info #28en: 3/8 Chemical fuels, not "fossil", I.


UNITE! Info #28en: 3/8 Chemical fuels, not "fossil", I.
[Posted: 23.02.97]


(3) Why the chemical fuels are NOT "fossil"  [Posted: 14.08.96]

[Continued from posting (2) - part 2/8]


HOW THE CHEMICAL FUELS WERE FORMED (ctd.)

To continue the account of this, I quote a part (pp. 130-132) of
an article by Thomas Gold and Steven Soter in the June 1980
issue of the popular science magazine Scientific American,
entitled "The Deep-Earth-Gas Hypothesis".


"The notion of nonbiological methane runs counter to the 
prevailing view in petroleum geology that virtually all the oil 
and natural gas in the earth is of biological origin. In that 
view the carbon in hydrocarbon fuels was all originally derived 
>from atmospheric carbon dioxide, and the energy to dissociate
the carbon and the oxygen came from sunlight in the course
of photosynthesis by green plants."

"The burial of some of these organic compounds before they
could become oxidized would then have provided the source
materials for oil and gas. It cannot be doubted that this
process contributed to the genesis of much of the petroleum
that has been recovered, but there may be more to the story."

"The hypothesis that the earth contains much nonbiological
hydrocarbon begins with the observation that hydrocarbons
are the dominant carbon-containing molecules in the solar
system. The universe is made mostly of hydrogen, and the
evidence of cosmochemistry suggests that the earth and
the rest of the solar system condensated out of a hydrogen-
saturated nebula."

"Most of the carbon in meterorites, which provide the best
clues to the original composition of the inner planets, is in
the form of complex hydrocarbons with some chemical
similarity to oil tars."

"It seems plausible that the earth acquired much of its
carbon in the form of such hydrocarbons. The earth's
primitive atmosphere probably held most of its carbon as
methane (CH4). The earliy stages of life on earth are 
thought to have required such an atmosphere."

"With the subsequent production of free oxygen by 
photosynthesis the atmosphere gradually attained its
present oxygen-rich composition, which today makes
hydrocarbon fuels a useful source of chemical energy,
since oxygen, one of the components needed for
combustion, is present everywhere in the atmosphere."

"What happened to the earth's primordial supply of
hydrocarbons? We suggest the following hypothesis.
Buried under conditions of high pressure and temperature,
the hydrocarbons would liberate methane as the principal
mobile component. This gas, often together with gases
>from other source materials, tends to migrate up toward
the surface, mainly along zones of weaknesses in the
crust, leaving the bulk of the heavy hydrocarbons behind."

"Where the pathway leads through hot volcanic lava the
methane will be oxidized to carbon dioxide (by oxygen
>from water and from some of the oxides of the rock)
just before it enters the atmosphere."

"Where the pathway allows a reduction of pressure in a
cooler nonmolten region, as along a cold fault, the gas
can reach the surface in its original reduced state. (In the
atmosphere it will survive for only a few years before it is
oxidized, eventually to carbon dioxide.)"

"Other pathways will cause the methane to be trapped
temporarily below relatively impermeable strata, where
it will then contribute to the known deposits of natural
gas."

[Note: Such an impermeable stratum, it has been
established, was caused in the Swedish province of
Dalarna by a meteorite which hit the earth there some
360 million years ago, causing the formation of the
so-called Siljan Ring and melting large parts of the
rock formations into a "lid". This has been considered
to be the explanation for the existence of a quite large 
gas and/or oil deposit at great depth there, to which a 
number of different and strong indications point. - RM]

"Finally, some of the methane, travelling on pathways that
convey it through hydrocarbon deposits, including oil of
biological origin, will become dissolved in those deposits.
If, as is likely, it is held there for a long time, chemical
changes will probably occur, including some that will cause
the carbon and the hydrogen to polymerize into the existing
hydrocarbon molecules."

"Most of the carbon in the methane that is migrating upward
will eventually enter the atmosphere, either directly as
methane or oxidized as carbon dioxide. From the atmosphere
the carbon dioxide is largely removed by being dissolved and
precipitated in the oceans."

"The sedimentary rocks of the earth's crust contain an 
enormous amount of carbon, mostly in the form of limestone
(calcium carbonate, CaCO3). Carbon is much more 
abundant in sediments than it is in the igneous rocks from
which the sediments derived. This 'excess' carbon must have
been brought from the interior to the surface in the form of 
the principal stable carbon gases (carbon dioxide and methane),
but what the proportion of the two gases may have been
cannot yet be determined."  

"If all the reduced sedimentary carbon originated from 
degassed carbon dioxide, a corresponding excess of oxygen
should be found in the sediments and the atmosphere. That
much oxygen does not seem to be present."

[Note: This then is one more argument against the "fossil" 
theory on the origins of the chemical fuel and in favour of the 
cosmic one, in addition to those 10 points I noted in posting 
(1). But I'll not go try to go any further into this. - RM]

"The supply of carbon in the form of hydrocarbons would avoid
the problem. Indeed, the degassing of methane may be an
important global process still going on."

"If the amounts remaining below are comparable with the 
amounts that must have come up to supply all or a substantial
portion of the surface carbon, the quantity of methane still
deep in the earth would be enormous compared with all
biological deposits of carbon."

"The main reservoirs are doubtless too deep to drill, but even
the quantities of methane that are temporarily arrested at
accessible levels on the way up are likely to be very large. It
will therefore be important to identify the pathways by which
the gas reaches accessible levels."


[So far, in postings (2) and (3), accounts of the cosmic or
"deep-earth-gas" theory concerning the (main) origins of oil, 
natural gas and coal. In subsequent postings, I'll go into some 
more details concerning those 10 points of evidence for the 
correctness of this theory which were enumerated in posting 
(1). - RM]

[Continued in part 4/8]



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