Oil is older than cyanobacteria. Oil is > 3.46 Billion years old.
The most ancient evidence comes from the Warrawoona Group (>3.46 Ga), where hydrocarbon droplets were apparently formedCyanobacteria is only 3.45 Billion years old.
'Oldest ever' fossils found ...This suggests oil is older than any living organism.
They found some 3.45 billion-year-old dolomite in the Pilbara range in North West Australia. After etching it with acid they found the fossils using an electron microscope.
It is believed that the fossils are of a cyanobacteria - an organism that still forms thick mats in warm shallow seas today.
But scientists at Oxford University reject the claim of 3.4 billion year old cyanobacteria: Questioning the evidence for Earth's oldest fossils.
Earth Sciences Department, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PR, UK. martinb@earth.ox.ac.ukFischer-Tropsch-type synthesis of carbon compounds. Read it and weep.
Structures resembling remarkably preserved bacterial and cyanobacterial microfossils from about 3,465-million-year-old Apex cherts of the Warrawoona Group in Western Australia currently provide the oldest morphological evidence for life on Earth and have been taken to support an early beginning for oxygen-producing photosynthesis. Eleven species of filamentous prokaryote, distinguished by shape and geometry, have been put forward as meeting the criteria required of authentic Archaean microfossils, and contrast with other microfossils dismissed as either unreliable or unreproducible. These structures are nearly a billion years older than putative cyanobacterial biomarkers, genomic arguments for cyanobacteria, an oxygenic atmosphere and any comparably diverse suite of microfossils. Here we report new research on the type and re-collected material, involving mapping, optical and electron microscopy, digital image analysis, micro-Raman spectroscopy and other geochemical techniques. We reinterpret the purported microfossil-like structure as secondary artefacts formed from amorphous graphite within multiple generations of metalliferous hydrothermal vein chert and volcanic glass. Although there is no support for primary biological morphology, a Fischer--Tropsch-type synthesis of carbon compounds and carbon isotopic fractionation is inferred for one of the oldest known hydrothermal systems on Earth.
Furthermore, cyanobacteria are hydrocarbon destroyers not hydrocarbon generators.
IF OIL IS "PRIMORDIAL" THE LOGICAL CONCLUSION IS THAT OIL IS OLDER THAN LIFE
ReplyDeleteThe bold assertion that oil formation is "primorial," that is, that oil formation is inherent in the geological makeup of the Earth, leaves only one conclusion:
Oil is older than life.
Because if oil formation is due to the geo-chemical construction of planet Earth and the resulting chemical reactions; these processes would have commenced at the earliest possible time in Earth's history.
Do chemical reactions consistent with the laws of chemistry and physics proceed the evolution of life dependent on those same chemical and physical laws?
Of course, chemical and physical reactions proceed the formation of the life dependent on those same reactions.
Oil is produced from the basic chemical affinities present from the first interactions between those relevent chemicals.
Chemical affinities or properties don't "evolve". They have been present and operational since the formation of the first stars, even the "big bang" that started the Universe for that matter.
Logic dictates that the chemicals affected by those known affinities were present at the creation of Earth.
The geo-mechanisms of chemical reactions would have been the first processes on Earth.
The law of "first priority" is that life evolves from chemical reactions; and not chemical reactions evolving from life.
Good call OilIsMastery.
THE REPEATED FACTOR OF ULTRA HIGH HEAT AND PRESSURE: ADD THE 'DOLOMITE PROBLEM'
ReplyDeleteReference,
Dolomite: the mineral that shouldn't exist,
NewScientist,
Julian Fowles, October 26, 1991.
(Available on Google)
Dolomite is a mineral found in association with oil deposits. "Some 80 per cent of the oil and gas reserves that can be recovered from carbonate reservoirs in North America are in dolomite."
It's made of calcium magnesium carbonate, its chemical makeup is CaMg(CO3)2.
As it turns out, since the discovery of dolomite in 1791, by French naturalist Deodat de Dolomieu, which the mineral is named after, there has been what is called the 'dolomite problem'.
"Since the days of Dolomieu, geologist have tried to synthesise dolomite under controlled laboratory conditions. It can be done, but only at high temperature and pressure."
Dolomite is found in large deposits and in hydrothermal veins.
Including, "dolomite has been discovered in sediments of the continental margin." The same location as the Carioca oil find off the coast of Brazil.
And dolomite was found in association with the Spindletop, 1901 Texas oil gusher.
The the question or 'problem' is how does dolomite form in nature if it can only be created in the laboratory by high temperature and pressure?
Of interesting note in the posted article is that the cyanobacteria was found among dolomite.
"They found some 3.45 billion year old dolomite in the Pilbara range in North West Australia."
Is it simple coincidence, or is something more involved; that in the question of oil's origin, ultra high heat and pressure are repeatedly involved?
We know that daimondoids are found in oil and that they are created in the laboratory only in ultra high heat and pressure; we know that there are "oil inclusions" in diamonds and that they are created some 100 miles deep in the mantel in conditions of ultra high heat and pressure; we know that the n-alkane series of hydrocarbons are created in the laboratory in ultra high heat and pressure in those same conditions as the mantel; and, now, we know that dolomite has only been able to created in the laboratory using high heat and pressure, and that it's found in hydrothermal veins, related to 'solfataric' vents and is associated with oil deposits.
This is a consistent pattern in regards to oil and its chemical associates revolving around ultra high heat and pressure.
Could it be that dolomite is also a 'solfataric' mineral that is formed deep in the Earth in conjunction with petroleum and Daimondoids. And, that is why dolomite is found in association with oil in 80% of the deposits.
The longer and more intense the search the more evidence is found consistent with abiotic oil theory, and the more improbable that petroleum is the remains of organic detritus.
The noose continues to tighten around "fossil" theory's neck.
Soon the trap door will snap open.