Exxon Valdez Times 80

Via Watts Up With That: Natural petroleum seeps release equivalent of eight to 80 Exxon Valdez oil spills. (Hat tip: Anaconda)

Study off Santa Barbara is first to quantify oil in sediments

A new study by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) is the first to quantify the amount of oil residue in seafloor sediments that result from natural petroleum seeps off Santa Barbara, California.

The new study shows the oil content of sediments is highest closest to the seeps and tails off with distance, creating an oil fallout shadow. It estimates the amount of oil in the sediments down current from the seeps to be the equivalent of approximately 8-80 Exxon Valdez oil spills.

The paper is being published in the May 15 issue of Environmental Science & Technology.

"Farwell developed and mapped out our plan for collecting sediment samples from the ocean floor," said WHOI marine chemist Chris Reddy, referring to lead author Chris Farwell, at the time an undergraduate working with UCSB's Dave Valentine. "After conducting the analysis of the samples, we were able to make some spectacular findings."

There is an oil spill everyday at Coal Oil Point (COP), the natural seeps off Santa Barbara, California, where 20-25 tons of oil have leaked from the seafloor each day for the last several hundred thousand years.

Earlier research by Reddy and Valentine at the site found that microbes were capable of degrading a significant portion of the oil molecules as they traveled from the reservoir to the ocean bottom and that once the oil floated to sea surface, about 10 percent of the molecules evaporated within minutes.

"One of the natural questions is: What happens to all of this oil?" Valentine said. "So much oil seeps up and floats on the sea surface. It's something we've long wondered. We know some of it will come ashore as tar balls, but it doesn't stick around. And then there are the massive slicks. You can see them, sometimes extending 20 miles from the seeps. But what really is the ultimate fate?"

Based on their previous research, Valentine and Reddy surmised that the oil was sinking "because this oil is heavy to begin with," Valentine said. "It's a good bet that it ends up in the sediments because it's not ending up on land. It's not dissolving in ocean water, so it's almost certain that it is ending up in the sediments."

To conduct their sampling, the team used the research vessel Atlantis, the 274-foot ship that serves as the support vessel for the Alvin submersible.

"We were conducting research at the seeps using Alvin during the summer of 2007," recalls Reddy. "One night during that two-week cruise, after the day's Alvin dive was complete and its crew prepared the sub for the next day's dive, Captain AD Colburn guided the Atlantis on an all-night sediment sampling campaign. It was no easy task for the crew of the Atlantis. We were operating at night, awfully close to land with a big ship where hazards are frequent. I tip my hat to Captain Colburn, his crew, and the shipboard technician for making this sampling effort so seamless."

The research team sampled 16 locations in a 90 km2 (35 square mile) grid starting 4 km west of the active seeps. Sample stations were arranged in five longitudinal transects with three water depths (40, 60, and 80 m) for each transect, with one additional comparison sample obtained from within the seep field.

To be certain that the oil they measured in the sediments came from the natural seeps, Farwell worked in Reddy's lab at WHOI using a comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatograph (GC×GC), that allowed them to identify specific compounds in the oil, which can differ depending on where the oil originates.

"The instrument reveals distinct biomarkers or chemical fossils -- like bones for an archeologist -- present in the oil. These fossils were a perfect match for the oil from the reservoir, the oil collected leaking into the ocean bottom, oil on the sea surface, and oil back in the sediment. We could say with confidence that the oil we found in the sediments was genetically connected to the oil reservoir and not from an accidental spill or runoff from land."

The oil that remained in the sediments represents what was not removed by "weathering" -- dissolving into the water, evaporating into the air, or being degraded by microbes. Next steps for this research team involve investigating why microbes consume most, but not all, of the compounds in the oil.

"Nature does an amazing job acting on this oil but somehow the microbes stopped eating, leaving a small fraction of the compounds in the sediments," said Reddy. "Why this happens is still a mystery, but we are getting closer."

Refutation of Geoffrey P. Glasby

Geoffrey P. Glasby is a so-called "chemist" at the University of Göttingen. In 2006, while at the University of Tokyo, he wrote an ontological (no offense to Ontologists) critique of reality in Resource Geology titled Abiogenic Hydrocarbons: An Historical Overview (also available here if you don't have Adobe).

There are so many factual errors in this paper that I assert it's impossible that it was peer reviewed and, if it was in fact peer reviewed, I would like to know the names of the illiterates who did so.

I have therefore decided to list the many factual errors of Geoffrey P. Glasby using his own words.

Factual error #1)

Thomas Gold's theory involves...the formation of higher hydrocarbons from methane in the upper layers of the Earth's crust.

That is incorrect. First of all it's not Thomas Gold's theory. More importantly, Thomas Gold's so-called "theory" involves the formation of higher hydrocarbons in the mantle. As Thomas Gold wrote in 1993, "Advances in high-pressure thermodynamics have shown that the pressure-temperature regime of the Earth would allow hydrocarbon molecules to be formed and to survive between the surface and a depth of 100 to 300 km." A depth of 100 to 300 km is clearly not in the crust. On the contrary, and unfortunately for Mr. Glasby, it is biogenic theory which states hydrocarbons are formed in the earth's crust which Glasby notes in the Abstract, is "not possible on thermodynamic grounds". Glasby writes, and I quote, "Formation of higher hydrocarbons in the upper layers of the Earth's crust occurs only as the result of Fischer-Tropsch-type reactions in the presence of hydrogen gas but is otherwise not possible on thermodynamic grounds." Therefore biogenic theory is invalid.

Factual error #2)

The theories of...N.A. Kudryavtsev and V.A. Porfir'ev...were too abstract and geologically too vague to be of practical use.

In what way is drilling past 15,000 feet and into igneous rock "too abstract and too vague to be of practical use"? This claim is laughable.

Factual error #3)

The Soviet theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins was never a driving force in the major oil fields as it's proponents claim.

So why did they drill past 15,000 feet TVD and into igneous rock?

Factual error #4)

The upper mantle is too oxidizing to permit methane from being the dominant form of carbon to be there.

How does Mr. Glasby know that the mantle is too oxidizing for methane to form there? Has he been to the mantle lately? Glasby offers no citation for this claim and, in fact, he cites precisely the opposite (Vernadsky 1933). However no abiotic theorist ever claimed that methane is the dominant form of carbon in the mantle.

Factual error #5)

These data show that the majority of the world's oil and gas is very young with 50% generated since the Oligocene.

However, Klemme and Ulmishek actually concluded "The concentration of [so-called] source rocks in these several stratigraphic intervals demonstrates uneven distribution of [so-called] source rocks in time." The reality is there is no such thing as so-called source rocks.

"The elemental distribution in the crude oil from all studied deposits does not match such of any known crustal rock." -- Kirill S. Ivanov, 2007.

Factual error #6)

The mantle is too oxidizing for methane to form there in abundance.

If the mantle is too oxidizing for methane to form in the mantle, how does Mr. Glasby propose that methane forms in the earth's crust? Oxygen is the most abundant element in the earths crust and comprises 46.6% of the earth's crust by mass. Once again Glasby offers no citation for the claim that oxidation is only possible in the earth's mantle but not in the earth's crust. In fact, he cited precisely the opposite (Vernadsky 1933) and I quote Glasby directly "with increasing depth in the earth's crust the oxygen content would decrease to zero, and the content of hydrogen would increase leading to the formation of hydrocarbons at depth." For the record, methane in the atmosphere has a half life of 7 years. More importantly, according to Oleg Sorokhtin, Ph.D.(Physics and Mathematics), of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Oceanology, formation of methane REQUIRES oxidation:

Oleg Sorokhtin also said that abiogenous methane is likely to be found on the lake bed. The gas evolves from oxidation of material from the earth's interior rising through the split between continental plates. Mantle rock contains liquid iron, causing the emissions of methane, which is involved in the carbon cycle.

Furthermore the National Academy of Sciences would, yet again, seem to disagree with Mr. Glasby: Generation of methane in the Earth's mantle: In situ high pressure–temperature measurements of carbonate reduction.

"I don't think anybody's arguing that gas couldn't be generated from the mantle." -- Barry J. Katz, 2002

Everything You Know About Oil Is Wrong

Myth Vs. Reality:

Myth: Oil Comes From Biological Organisms

Reality: No biological organism has ever been observed miraculously transforming into hydrocarbons. The Second Law of Thermodynamics prevents that from ever happening.

Myth: Oil Is Formed In The Earth's Crust

Reality: In 2002, the National Academy of Sciences published a paper which proves that the complex polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons found in outer space and on Earth can only be formed at pressures above 30 kilobar, which corresponds to a depth of about 100 kilometers deep in the Earth's mantle. (No biological molecule can survive at such a depth because it is hotter than the critical point of water).

Myth: Oil Is Only Found In Sediments

Reality: Oil is found in volcanic igneous rocks. See here, here, here, and here.

Myth: Biomarkers Are Found In Oil

Reality: In 2007 ICP-MS analysis proved that all oil has inorganic geochemistry. Also see here.