Hydrocarbons Deep Within Earth

Science Daily: Hydrocarbons Deep Within Earth: New Computational Study Reveals How.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 17, 2011) — A new computational study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals how hydrocarbons may be formed from methane in deep Earth at extreme pressures and temperatures.

The thermodynamic and kinetic properties of hydrocarbons at high pressures and temperatures are important for understanding carbon reservoirs and fluxes in Earth.

The work provides a basis for understanding experiments that demonstrated polymerization of methane to form high hydrocarbons and earlier methane forming reactions under pressure.

Hydrocarbons (molecules composed of the elements hydrogen and carbon) are the main building block of crude oil and natural gas. Hydrocarbons contribute to the global carbon cycle (one of the most important cycles of Earth that allows for carbon to be recycled and reused throughout the biosphere and all of its organisms).

The team includes colleagues at UC Davis, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Shell Projects & Technology. One of the researchers, UC Davis Professor Giulia Galli, is the co-chair of the Deep Carbon Observatory's Physics and Chemistry of Deep Carbon Directorate and former LLNL researcher.

Geologists and geochemists believe that nearly all (more than 99 percent) of the hydrocarbons in commercially produced crude oil and natural gas are formed by the decomposition of the remains of living organisms, which were buried under layers of sediments in Earth's crust, a region approximately 5-10 miles below Earth's surface. [LOL...still repeating the same old song]

But hydrocarbons of purely chemical deep crustal or mantle origin (abiogenic) could occur in some geologic settings, such as rifts or subduction zones said Galli, a senior author on the study.

Hydrocarbons Could Form Deep In the Earth From Methane, Not Animal Remains

Boyle, R., Hydrocarbons Could Form Deep In the Earth From Methane, Not Animal Remains, PopSci, April 15th 2011

A new study demonstrates how high hydrocarbons could be formed from methane deep within the Earth, aside from the compression and heating of ancient animal remains over the eons. Fused-methane oil would be far less common than your typical petroleum, of course, but the study shows abiogenic hydrocarbons could conceivably occur in some of the planet’s high-pressure and high-temperature zones.

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used supercomputers to simulate what would happen to carbon and hydrogen atoms buried 40 to 95 miles beneath the Earth’s crust, where they would be subjected to prodigious pressures and temperatures.

They found at temperatures greater than 2,240 degrees F and pressures 50,000 times greater than those at the Earth’s surface, methane molecules can fuse to form hydrocarbons with multiple carbon atoms. Interactions with metal or carbon sped up the fusion process, the researchers said. These conditions are present about 70 miles down, according to an LLNL news release.

Methane, CH4, has one carbon and four hydrogen atoms; high hydrocarbons, like propane and butane, have more carbon atoms.

About 99 percent of all the hydrocarbons in oil and natural gas are derived from the compressed, heated remains of ancient living organisms like zooplankton and algae. These critters were buried under layers of sediments five to 10 miles beneath the surface of the Earth.[LOL...still lying]

In the 19th and 20th centuries, some scientists believed hydrocarbons could form from abiogenic (non-biological) processes, too. The existence of methane on several solar system bodies shows hydrocarbons can exist without organic ingredients. But the theory fell out of favor, in part because no one ever found any abiogenic oil deposits.

The LLNL researchers don’t claim to know where such deposits would be, nor did they examine whether or how such deep deposits could ever migrate higher into the mantle where they could be retrieved. But the researchers say abiogenic hydrocarbons are technically possible in some settings like rifts or subduction zones, according to Giulia Galli, a professor at UC-Davis and senior author on the study, which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“We don't say that higher hydrocarbons actually occur under the realistic 'dirty' Earth mantle conditions, but we say that the pressures and temperatures alone are right for it to happen,” she said.

Microbes May Consume Far More Oil-Spill Waste Than Earlier Thought

Science Daily: Microbes May Consume Far More Oil-Spill Waste Than Earlier Thought.

ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2010) — Microbes living at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico may consume far more of the gaseous waste from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill than previously thought, according to research carried out within 100 miles of the spill site.

A paper on that research, conducted before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded six months ago, will appear in a forthcoming issue of the journal Deep-Sea Research II. It describes the anaerobic oxidation of methane, a key component of the Gulf oil spill, by microbes living in seafloor brine pools.

"Because of the ample oil and gas reserves under the Gulf of Mexico, slow seepage is a natural part of the ecosystem," says Peter R. Girguis, associate professor of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University. "Entire communities have arisen on the seafloor that depend on these seeps. Our analysis shows that within these communities, some microbes consume methane 10 to 100 times faster than we've previously realized."

Mendeleyev On Abiotic Hydrocarbon Origin

"Whether naphta was formed by organic matter is very doubtful, as it is found in the most ancient Silurian [Ordovician] strata which correspond with the epochs of the earth's existence when there was very little organic matter; it could not penetrate from the higher to the lower (more ancient) strata as it floats on water (and water penetrates through all strata)." -- Dmitri Mendeleyev, chemist, 1877

"It may be supposed that naphta was produced by the action of water penetrating through the crevices of the strata during the upheaval of mountain chains because water with iron carbide ought to give iron oxide and hydrocarbons." -- Dmitri Mendeleyev, chemist, 1877

T. Anthony Michael: BP Oil Spill Global Catastrophe Reaches Epic Proportions.

Let’s let the real experts tell us the real story about where oil and gas really come from. Highly esteemed Russian researcher, Dmitri Mendeleev, is described as follows by Wikipedia. Perhaps we ought to listen carefully to him. “Mendeleev made other important contributions to chemistry. The Russian chemist and science historian L.A. Tchugayev has characterized him as “a chemist of genius, first-class physicist, a fruitful researcher in the fields of hydrodynamics, meteorology, geology, certain branches of chemical technology (explosives, petroleum, and fuels, for example) and other disciplines adjacent to chemistry and physics, a thorough expert of chemical industry and industry in general, and an original thinker in the field of economy.” Mendeleev was one of the founders, in 1869, of the Russian Chemical Society.”

Here’s what Dmitri has to say about the abiogenic source of hydrocarbons in his tract entitled THE ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM:

“The capital fact to note is that petroleum was born in the depths of the Earth, and it is only there that we must seek its origin.” (D. Mendeleev, 1877){{ref|Mendeleev}} Mendeleev, D., 1877. L’Origine du pétrole. Revue Scientifique, second series, VIII, p. 409–416

Wildcatter Moncrief Gets It

Joe Carroll: Texas Wildcatter Moncrief Hits Latest Gusher Beneath Old Fields. (Hat tip: John A. Bailo)

Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- William “Tex” Moncrief, the billionaire wildcatter and scion of one of the founding families of the Texas oil industry, is betting the key to finding new gushers is to go deeper than anyone has gone before.

Moncrief agreed in September to help finance McMoRan Exploration Co.’s $70 million Davy Jones well off the Louisiana coast in exchange for a 10 percent stake in the prospect. The gamble paid off last week, when New Orleans-based McMoRan said the well hit what may be one of the biggest Gulf of Mexico oil and gas discoveries in decades.

Moncrief bought a piece of Davy Jones after being impressed by McMoRan’s success with a former Exxon Mobil Corp. well known as Blackbeard at a then-record depth of 32,997 feet (10,057 meters). He said he’s eager to invest in more projects with McMoRan Co-Chairman James “Jim Bob” Moffett, a friend of 50 years and a pioneer in finding oil miles beneath old fields.

“I knew Jim Bob took in that old Exxon Blackbeard well and went deeper with it to make it work,” Moncrief, 89, said in a telephone interview from the headquarters of closely held Moncrief Oil in Fort Worth, Texas. “I’ve drilled lots of deep wells. Sometimes when you don’t find what you’re looking for, you have to just keep on going.”

The biggest find so far in Moncrief’s 64 years in the oil patch was the Madden field in Wyoming, which he tapped at almost 28,000 feet underground in 1969. Four decades after its discovery, Madden is pumping out enough natural gas to rank as the state’s fifth-biggest producer, according to the Wyoming Oil and Gas Commission.

Deep Stuff

“Tex has always been very aggressive and willing to go after deals,” said A.V. Jones, owner of Van Operating Ltd., an Albany, Texas-based oil producer. “He’s been a leader as far as going after some of the deep stuff that takes real money to make it play.”

McMoRan said today that its Davy Jones well found additional hydrocarbon-bearing sands after drilling deeper following the discovery announced last week. The well was drilled to 28,603 feet, all but about 20 feet of that beneath the seafloor. It has found 200 net feet of productive sands and will go deeper, according to McMoRan.

Chevron's Ultra-Deep Water Wells

"One can, then, conceive the production, by purely mineral means, of all natural hydrocarbons. The intervention of heat, of water, and of alkaline metals -- lastly, the tendency of hydrocarbons to unite together to form the more condensed material -- suffice to account for the formation of these curious compounds. Moreover, this formation will be continuous because the reactions which started it are renewed incessantly." -- Marcellin Berthelot, chemist, 1866

"Hydrocarbons can be re-defined as a 'renewable resource, rather than a finite one' (Gurney 1997)" -- Peter R. Odell, economist/geologist, 2004

Casselman, B., and Chazan, G., Cramped on Land, Big Oil Bets at Sea, The Wall Street Journal via Yahoo! News, January 6th 2010 (Hat tip: Jeffery Keown)

Chevron is leasing the Clear Leader, which floats in 4,300 feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico, to drill for oil through nearly five miles of rock.

Big Oil never wanted to be here, in 4,300 feet of water far out in the Gulf of Mexico, drilling through nearly five miles of rock.

It is an expensive way to look for oil. Chevron Corp. is paying nearly $500,000 a day to the owner of the Clear Leader, one of the world's newest and most powerful drilling rigs. The new well off the coast of Louisiana will connect to a huge platform floating nearby, which cost Chevron $650 million to build. ...

"These discoveries are changing the debate," says Ed Morse, chief economist for LCM Commodities, a brokerage firm. What remains unclear, he says, is whether the deepwater projects will ensure that new discoveries continue to meet demand.

Many in the industry argue the new fields have expanded the limits of where the industry can find oil, potentially delaying a decline in global production.

"There are vast unexplored areas in deep water, so tremendous opportunities for growth," says Steven Newman, president of Transocean Ltd., which owns the Clear Leader rig. ...

Adding to the challenge: The oil that Chevron was pursuing lay beneath a thick layer of salt, which disrupts seismic sound waves and blurs the images like a smudge on a camera lens. The company had to analyze the data with supercomputers to clear up that distortion.

Abiotic Synthesis of Methane

"One can, then, conceive the production, by purely mineral means, of all natural hydrocarbons. The intervention of heat, of water, and of alkaline metals -- lastly, the tendency of hydrocarbons to unite together to form the more condensed material -- suffice to account for the formation of these curious compounds. Moreover, this formation will be continuous because the reactions which started it are renewed incessantly." -- Marcellin Berthelot, chemist, 1866

"The atomic theory, adopted later by the Epicureans, came to us, and she is still professed today by the majority of chemists. It thus seems that it is by a kind of natural affinity that the alchemists reported their origins to Democritus." -- Marcellin Berthelot, chemist, 1885

Science Daily: Abiotic Synthesis Of Methane: New Evidence Supports 19th-Century Idea On Formation Of Oil And Gas.

ScienceDaily (Nov. 6, 2009) — Scientists in Washington, D.C. are reporting laboratory evidence supporting the possibility that some of Earth's oil and natural gas may have formed in a way much different than the traditional process described in science textbooks.

No Fossils In Fuel

"The modern theory of the abiotic deep petroleum origins recognizes that petroleum is a primordial material of deep origin which has been erupted into the crust of the Earth. In short, petroleum is not a 'fossil fuel' and has no intrinsic connection with any biological detritus 'in the sediments'." -- Vladimir A. Kutcherov, geologist, August 2008

"There is no doubt that our research proves that crude oil and natural gas are generated without the involvement of fossils. All types of bedrock can serve as reservoirs of oil." -- Vladimir A. Kutcherov, geologist, September 2009

KTH Royal Institute of Technology: Easier to find oil. (Via Science Daily)

Researchers at KTH have been able to prove that the fossils of animals and plants are not necessary to generate raw oil and natural gas. This result is extremely radical as it means that it will be much easier to find these energy sources and that they may be located all over the world.

“With the help of our research we even know where oil could be found in Sweden!” says Vladimir Kutcherov, Professor at the KTH Department of Energy Technology in Stockholm.

Together with two research colleagues, Professor Kutcherov has simulated the process of pressure and heat that occurs naturally in the inner strata of the earth’s crust. This process generates hydrocarbons, the primary elements of oil and natural gas.

According to Vladimir Kutcherov, these results are a clear indication that oil supplies are not drying up, which has long been feared by researchers and experts in the field.

He adds that there is no chance that fossil oils, with the help of gravity or other forces, would have been able to seep down to a depth of 10.5 kilometres in, for example the US state of Texas, which is rich in oil deposits. This is, according to Vladimir Kutcherov, in addition to his own research results, further evidence that this energy sources can occur other than via fossils - something which will cause a lively discussion among researchers for a considerable period of time.

“There is no doubt that our research has shown that raw oil and natural gas occur without the inclusion of fossils. All types of rock formations can act as hosts for oil deposits,” asserts Vladimir and adds that this applies to areas of land that have previously remained unexplored as possible sources of this type of energy.

This discovery has several positive aspects. Rate of success as concerns finding oil increases dramatically – from 20 till 70 percent. As drilling for oil and natural gas is an extremely expensive process, costs levels will be radically changed for the petroleum companies and eventually also for the end user.

“This means savings of many billions of kronor,” says Vladimir.

In order to identify where it is worth drilling for natural gas and oil, Professor Kutcherov has, via his research, developed a new method. The world is divided into a fine-meshed grid. This grid is the equivalent of cracks, known as migration channels, through strata underlying the earth’s crust. Good places to drill are where these cracks meet.

According to Professor Kutcherov, these research results are extremely important not least as 61 percent of the world’s energy consumption is currently based on raw oil and natural gas.

The next stage in this research is more experiments, especially to refine the method that makes it easier to locate drilling points for oil and natural gas.

The research results produced by Vladimir Kutcherov, Anton Kolesnikov and Alexander Goncharov were recently published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience, Volume 2, August.

For more information, please contact Vladimir Kutcherov at vladimir.kutcherov@indek.KTH.se or on +46 8790 85 07.

Propane For 150 Billion BBQs?

"We now have in our hands—really, in our libraries—the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years." -- Julian L. Simon, economist, 1995

"The industry will never run out of oil, not in 10,000 years. Some day, it may run out of customers. Every mineral industry is a perpetual tug-of-war, between diminishing returns and increasing knowledge." -- Morris A. Adelman, economist, 1997

Science Daily: Saturn's Moon Titan Could Power 150 Billion Labor Day Barbecues

"Titan's atmosphere is extremely rich in an assortment of hydrocarbon chemicals, including propane, which we use to fill our barbecue tanks," said Cassini scientist Conor Nixon of the University of Maryland, College Park. "Titan's atmospheric inventory would fuel about 150 billion barbecue cookouts, enough for several thousand years of Labor Days."

Transocean Says Tiber Well Is Deepest Ever

Another billion barrels @ 35,000 feet TVD.

Transocean Press Release: Deepwater Horizon Drills World's Deepest Oil & Gas Well.

ZUG, SWITZERLAND—Transocean Ltd. (NYSE: RIG) today announced that its ultra-deepwater semisubmersible rig Deepwater Horizon recently drilled the deepest oil and gas well ever while working for BP and its co-owners on the Tiber well in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. Working with BP, the Transocean crews on the Deepwater Horizon drilled the well to 35,050 vertical depth and 35,055 feet measured depth (MD), or more than six miles, while operating in 4,130 feet of water.

"This impressive well depth record reflects the intensive planning and focus on effective operations by BP and the drilling crews of the Deepwater Horizon," said Robert L. Long, Transocean Ltd.'s Chief Executive Officer. "Congratulations to everyone involved."

These achievements are the latest in Transocean's history of world and other records dating back to the 1950s. In 2005, the ultra-deepwater drillship Discoverer Spirit set the record for the longest Gulf of Mexico oil and gas well at 34,189 feet, MD. Most recently, the Transocean jackup GSF Rig 127 drilled the industry’s longest extended-reach well in 2008 while working for Maersk Oil Qatar AS at 40,320 feet MD with a 35,770-foot horizontal section. The well was drilled offshore Qatar in 36 days and was incident-free.

Transocean also holds the current world water-depth record of operating in 10,011 feet of water set while working for Chevron in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

The Deepwater Horizon, placed into service in 2001, is a dynamically positioned ultra-deepwater semisubmersible rig capable of working in water depths of up to 10,000 feet.

Hydrocarbons Are Inorganic and Infinite

"Do these fuels result always and necessarily in one way from the decomposition of a pre-existing organic substance? Is it thus with the hydrocarbons so frequently observed in volcanic eruptions and emanations, and to which M. Ch. Sainte-Claire Deville has called attention in recent years? Finally, must one assign a parralel origin to carbonaceous matter and to hydrocarbons contained in certain meteorites, and which appear to have an origin foreign to our planet? These are questions on which the opinion of many distinguished geologists does not as yet appear to be fixed." -- Marcellin Berthelot, chemist, 1866

"One can, then, conceive the production, by purely mineral means, of all natural hydrocarbons. The intervention of heat, of water, and of alkaline metals -- lastly, the tendency of hydrocarbons to unite together to form the more condensed material -- suffice to account for the formation of these curious compounds. Moreover, this formation will be continuous because the reactions which started it are renewed incessantly." -- Marcellin Berthelot, chemist, 1866



"All giant oil fields are most logically explained by inorganic theory." -- Vladimir B. Porfir'yev, geologist, 1974

"I don't think anybody has ever doubted that there is an inorganic source of hydrocarbons." -- Michael D. Lewan, geologist, 2002

"Hydrocarbons can be re-defined as a 'renewable resource, rather than a finite one' (Gurney 1997)" -- Peter R. Odell, economist/geologist, 2004

"The ICP-MS method begin a new stage in oil inorganic geochemistry study." -- Kirill S. Ivanov, et al., geochemist, 2007

Amy Callaghan: Can oil form without organic matter? If you're reading this you probably know what the correct answer to that question is.

SYDNEY: New research reveals that the hydrocarbon elements of oil and gas may be able to form deep in the Earth's crust without the need for fossilised organic matter.

A team led by researchers at the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory, in Washington DC, have studied the chemical reactions of methane at high temperatures and pressures and under oxidising conditions. They say that this shows that – theoretically at least – oil can form deep in the Earth's crust without the need for decomposing plants or animal material.

Most of the crude oil and gas we use was formed hundreds of millions of years ago when vast forests decomposed under great heat and pressure below sediment in the Earth's crust.

20,000 times atmospheric pressure

But experts have also wondered if some of these hydrocarbons might form chemically in the upper mantle and are then transported through faults and fissures to shallower regions, contributing to petroleum reserves.

Methane is the simplest hydrocarbon and is abundant in the atmosphere. The new study, detailed in the journal Nature Geoscience used a diamond anvil cell (a device which puts samples under immense pressures) and a laser heat source, to subject methane to conditions which mimic those found deep inside the Earth.

Pressures there can exceed 20 thousand times that at sea level, while temperatures can exceed 1,200°C.

"We demonstrated the chemical transformation of methane to heavier saturated hydrocarbons such as ethane, butane and propane and its reversibility under the conditions of the upper Earth's mantle," said the Carnegie Institution's Alexander Goncharov.

Improved techniques

The results suggest that heavier hydrocarbons than methane could exist deep down within the crust, he said, and this process may even have contributed to our oil and gas reserves today.

Although previous experiments have reported formation of heavier hydrocarbons from methane under high pressures and temperatures, according to Goncharov, the molecules could not be identified and the process was not proven. "We overcame this problem with our improved laser-heating technique where we could cook larger volumes more uniformly," he said.

Study co-author, Vladimir Kutcherov said this theory backs up research which suggests that hydrocarbons formed in this was seep up through deep faults in the Earth's crust, where they form larger deposits. "So, our planet may have enormous, inexhaustible resources of hydrocarbons," he said.

Hydrocarbons In The Deep Earth

Hydrocarbons are chemical compounds and not biological organisms. Since hydrogen is the most abundant chemical element in the universe and carbon is the fourth most abundant chemical element in the universe, hydrocarbons are infinite.

"One can, then, conceive the production, by purely mineral means, of all natural hydrocarbons. The intervention of heat, of water, and of alkaline metals -- lastly, the tendency of hydrocarbons to unite together to form the more condensed material -- suffice to account for the formation of these curious compounds. Moreover, this formation will be continuous because the reactions which started it are renewed incessantly." -- Marcellin Berthelot, chemist, 1866

Science Daily: Hydrocarbons In The Deep Earth? (Hat tip: Bloggin Brewskie)

ScienceDaily (July 27, 2009) — The oil and gas that fuels our homes and cars started out as living organisms that died, were compressed, and heated under heavy layers of sediments in the Earth's crust. Scientists have debated for years whether some of these hydrocarbons could also have been created deeper in the Earth and formed without organic matter. Now for the first time, scientists have found that ethane and heavier hydrocarbons can be synthesized under the pressure-temperature conditions of the upper mantle —the layer of Earth under the crust and on top of the core.

The research was conducted by scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory, with colleagues from Russia and Sweden, and is published in the July 26, advanced online issue of Nature Geoscience.

How original...pfff... big ass rolleyes.

"The capital fact to note is that petroleum was born in the depths of the Earth, and it is only there that we must seek its origin." -- Dmitri Mendeleyev, chemist, 1877

"It may be supposed that naphta was produced by the action of water penetrating through the crevices of the strata during the upheaval of mountain chains because water with iron carbide ought to give iron oxide and hydrocarbons." -- Dmitri Mendeleyev, chemist, 1877

"Whether naphta was formed by organic matter is very doubtful, as it is found in the most ancient Silurian [Ordovician] strata which correspond with the epochs of the earth's existence when there was very little organic matter; it could not penetrate from the higher to the lower (more ancient) strata as it floats on water (and water penetrates through all strata)." -- Dmitri Mendeleyev, chemist, 1877

"Do these fuels result always and necessarily in one way from the decomposition of a pre-existing organic substance? Is it thus with the hydrocarbons so frequently observed in volcanic eruptions and emanations, and to which M. Ch. Sainte-Claire Deville has called attention in recent years? Finally, must one assign a parralel origin to carbonaceous matter and to hydrocarbons contained in certain meteorites, and which appear to have an origin foreign to our planet? These are questions on which the opinion of many distinguished geologists does not as yet appear to be fixed." -- Marcellin Berthelot, chemist, 1866

"The hydrogen gas evolved from volcanoes, or from chasms in the earth during earthquakes, is generally combined with sulphur or carbon; it is probably formed by the decompostion of water, when it finds access to subterranean fire." -- Robert Bakewell, geologist, 1813

"Petroleum is the product of a distillation from great depth and issues from the primitive rocks beneath which the forces of all volcanic action lie." -- Alexander Von Humboldt, naturalist, 1804

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."

Hydrocarbon Rain May Fill Titan's Lakes

CYCLOPS: Cassini Finds Hydrocarbon Rains May Fill Titan Lakes. (Hat tip: Universe Today)

Recent images of Titan from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft affirm the presence of lakes of liquid hydrocarbons by capturing changes in the lakes brought on by rainfall.

For several years, Cassini scientists have suspected that dark areas near the north and south poles of Saturn’s largest satellite might be liquid-filled lakes. An analysis published today in the journal Geophysical Research Letters of recent pictures of Titan's south polar region reveals new lake features not seen in images of the same region taken a year earlier. The presence of extensive cloud systems covering the area in the intervening year suggests that the new lakes could be the result of a large rainstorm and that some lakes may thus owe their presence, size and distribution across Titan’s surface to the moon’s weather and changing seasons.

The high-resolution cameras of Cassini’s Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) have now surveyed nearly all of Titan’s surface at a global scale. An updated Titan map, being released today by the Cassini Imaging Team, includes the first near-infrared images of the leading hemisphere portion of Titan’s northern "lake district” captured on Aug. 15-16, 2008. (The leading hemisphere of a moon is that which always points in the direction of motion as the moon orbits the planet.) These ISS images complement existing high-resolution data from Cassini’s Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) and RADAR instruments.

Such observations have documented greater stores of liquid methane in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere. And, as the northern hemisphere moves toward summer, Cassini scientists predict large convective cloud systems will form there and precipitation greater than that inferred in the south could further fill the northern lakes with hydrocarbons.

Some of the north polar lakes are large. If full, Kraken Mare -- at 400,000 square kilometers -- would be almost five times the size of North America’s Lake Superior. All the north polar dark ‘lake’ areas observed by ISS total more than 510,000 square kilometers -- almost 40 percent larger than Earth’s largest “lake,” the Caspian Sea.

However, evaporation from these large surface reservoirs is not great enough to replenish the methane lost from the atmosphere by rainfall and by the formation and eventual deposition on the surface of methane-derived haze particles.

“A recent study suggested that there's not enough liquid methane on Titan's surface to resupply the atmosphere over long geologic timescales,” said Dr. Elizabeth Turtle, Cassini imaging team associate at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Md., and lead author of today’s publication. “Our new map provides more coverage of Titan's poles, but even if all of the features we see there were filled with liquid methane, there's still not enough to sustain the atmosphere for more than 10 million years.”

Combined with previous analyses, the new observations suggest that underground methane reservoirs must exist.

Israel Finds Natural Gas 3 Miles Deep

Jerry Corsi: Israel finds huge natural gas reserve. (Hat tip: Music Row Blogger)

NEW YORK – A huge deep-water natural gas find off the coast of Israel promises to be a boon to the Jewish state's economy as well as a stimulus to other developers searching for offshore oil and natural gas in the Mediterranean.

Noble Energy, a New York Stock Exchange-listed company, has discovered an estimated more than 3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in three high-quality reservoirs drilled in the company's Tamar No. 1 well in the Mediterranean Sea, about 56 miles off the Israeli northern port of Haifa.

Noble Energy drilled the Tamar No. 1 well to a depth of about three miles, beneath 5,500 feet of water.

The find is significant for those who believe the Bible indicates Israel is sitting on a massive oil reserve that would reshape the geopolitical structure of the Middle East.

The find also lends support to the abiotic theory of the origin of oil that holds oil is created naturally within the mantle of the earth, not by biological origins. ...

"This is one of the most significant prospects that we have ever tested and appears to be the largest discovery in the company's history," he continued.

"We are witnessing an historic moment in Israel's energy market," Israel's National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer told Reuters. "If it turns out in a few weeks that the indicators received in recent days are true, then we are talking about the biggest find in Israel's history."

Oil's Origin Revisted

Robert Matthews: Oil’s origins revisited.

Once upon a time, clever people scared themselves by trying to predict the end of the world. Sir Isaac Newton’s best estimate, for example – recently uncovered in archived manuscripts – was some time in the year 2060 [Yet more Newtonian idiocy].

Today smart people seem intent on scaring all of us by trying to predict an event no less apocalyptic for modern economies: the arrival of “peak oil”, after which output of crude oil falls into terminal decline.

Last week it was the turn of Fatih Birol, chief economist to the International Energy Agency (IEA), who argued that conventional crude output could plateau in 2020. How seriously we should take this is anyone’s guess. Only last month, the IEA itself was claiming the turning point would be 2030 – 10 years later than its current estimate. With Opec having just imposed its largest-ever cut in oil production, the IEA may well have to issue another estimate next month.

Like predictions of the Final Trump, attempts to guess when oil will run out have a long and sorry history. In 1874, the chief geologist of Pennsylvania, then America’s leading oil-producing state, estimated the nation only had enough of the stuff to last around four years. Nowadays, there seem to be almost as many views as experts, with some claiming peak oil may have been passed some years ago and others – as this newspaper reported recently – insisting it lies far in the future.

In the end, all the arguments centre on simple supply and demand: is there enough exploitable oil in the ground to meet projected needs? So far the ingenuity of petroleum engineers has kept the black gold flowing through advances in the technology of finding and extracting oil. But it seems obvious that it must run out eventually; after all, there’s no more of the stuff being made deep underground. Or is there?

According to the textbooks, oil is the product of 150 to 200 million- year-old fossilised remains of marine organisms being transformed by the combined effect of bacterial action, heat and pressure. But according to some scientists, there may be other sources of oil, created by different means, which remain undiscovered simply because no one expects to find them.

During the 1950s, a team led by the Soviet geologist Dr Nikolai Kudryavtsev of the All-Union Geological Research Institute pointed out that crude oil is sometimes found at sites with no obvious connection to fossilised organisms – such as the Siljan Ring structure of central Sweden, where tar and oil seep out of pure crystalline granite.

According to Dr Kudryavtsev and his colleagues, these puzzling discoveries suggest that oil can also be formed in the absence of living organisms – for example, from hydrocarbons trapped inside the Earth during its formation around 4.5 billion years ago.

Abiotic Deep Origin of Hydrocarbons

I missed this last month and wasn't sure what Anaconda was talking about until now: GEP-13 Abiotic deep origin of hydrocarbons: Myth or reality?.

About combination genesis of hydrocarbons in different regions of Glob (Case Lesser Caucasus and Arabian Plate)
Albert Harutyunyan, Sargis Grigoryan

About the deep source of the hydrocarbon's reduced systems and origin of the Romashkin oil field
Rimma Gottikh, Bogdan Pisotskiy , Irina Plotnikova

Carbon in ancient serpentinite-hosted hydrothermal systems: Constraints from the northern Apennine ophiolites (Italy) and the Iberian margin
Esther Schwarzenbach

Deep origin of oil: Evidences from inorganic geochemistry of oil
Kirill Ivanov, Yuri Fedorov, Yuri Erokhin, Olga Pogromskaya, Yuri Ronkin, Irina Plotnikova

Fractured zone of the upper crust as a source of hydrocarbons entry
Inna Balanyuk, Anatoly Dmitrievsky, Tatiana Akivis

High production of hydrogen and abiogenic hydrocarbons by serpentinization of ultramafic rocks between 12°N and 40°N on the mid-Atlantic Ridge- Methane plumes and hot fluid geochemistry
Jean Luc Charlou, Jean Pierre Donval, Cecile Konn, Yves Fouquet, Philippe Jean-Baptiste

How tectonically driven upward movement of deep abiotic hydrocarbons makes conventional oil and gas fields
Alexander Kitchka

Hydrocarbons in the Ilimaussaq magmatic intrusion, Greenland, exhibit both abiogenic and biogenic signature
Troels Laier, Hans Peter Nytoft

Hydrocarbons in the rift zones, evidence from Iceland and Israel
Yuri Galant, Alfred Geptner, Yuri Pikovskii

New models of oil/gas forming in light of unique data of the ultra deep wells
Yuri Galant

Organic compound occurrence in fluids from ultramafic-hosted hydrothermal systems of the Mid-Atlantic ridge: a consequence of H2 production?
Cecile Konn, Jean-Luc Charlou, Jean-Pierre Donval, Nils Holm, Frank Dehairs, Bouillon Steven

Polygenesis of oil and gas
Anatoly Dmitrievskiy

Precambrian crystalline basement of the Volgo-Kama anticline and the origin of oil fields
Rimma Gottikh, Renat Muslimov, Bogdan Pisotskiy, Irina Plotnikova

Quantification of the rate of methane production by serpentinization
Alasdair Skelton, Patrick Crill, Fredrik Arghe, Bob Whitmarsh, Hemin Koyi

The modern theory of abiotic deep genesis of hydrocarbons: A history of the history
Vladimir Kutcherov

Trassers of superdeep fluids in petroliferous reservoirs
Alexander Lukin

As Anaconda noted, this website is a Brazilian government website and indicates that Petrobras (PBR) is well aware of abiotic exploration principles. Furthermore, it was sponsored by StatoilHydro (STO).

University of Minnesota Seminar On Abiotic Hydrocarbons

Research scientist Qi Fu of the University of Minnesota will be leading a seminar on Abiotic Hydrocarbons this Friday: LPI Seminar Series: Experimental investigations on abiotic formation of hydrocarbons under hydrothermal conditions.

Qi Fu, Univ. of Minnesota

Experimental investigations on abiotic formation of hydrocarbons under hydrothermal conditions

A series of experiments were conducted to study mineral catalyzed carbon reduction processes in subseafloor hydrothermal systems. In experiments involving magnetite and CO2 and H2-bearing aqueous fluids at 400oC and 500 bars, time-series fluid samples indicated significant concentrations of dissolved CO and C1-C3 hydrocarbons and relatively large changes in dissolved CO2 and H2 concentrations, consistent with formation of additional hydrocarbons beyond C3. The isotope results showed a pattern of C and H isotope enrichment between C1 and higher hydrocarbons. The "isotopic reversal" trend was not observed for 13C values of dissolved alkanes with increasing carbon number. This may relate to the specific mechanism of carbon reduction under hydrothermal conditions at elevated temperatures and pressures. In another experiment, the catalytic role of iron-nickel sulfide (Pentlandite) was evaluated using a 13C-labeled carbon source at conditions (T, P, and fluid chemistry) close to Rainbow/Logatchev vent systems. Dissolved 13C-bearing alkane species were produced with relatively low H2(aq)/CO2(aq) ratio and the existence of dissolved H2S. Hydroxymethylene is the key intermediate in the hypothesized reaction mechanism, which was consistent with XPS and ToF-SIMS analysis results on the mineral product.

Also see here.

God and Infinite Oil

I love this kind of post because nothing upsets the doomers more than throwing a little God into the infinite hydrocarbon mix: What God Thinks About Anthropogenic Global Warming.

One would think God would know of the alleged shortage of oil, and He would devise a way oil could be produced almost indefinitely. The 1970’s scientific theory called Hubbert’s Peak Oil predicted we would exhaust oil reserves by 2003. But counter intuitively, many oil fields have reported increased production.

Evidence for “abiotic” oil (Science) has been popping up in some strange places. “Abiotic” means formation of oil without biological decay over millions of years. Evidence such as finding oil at 30,000 feet, far below 18,000 feet where organic matter disappears; and some inoperative wells that are pumping significantly more barrels than earlier. But the oft-overlooked “coup-de-grace”: the amount of oil pumped to date, cannot be accounted for by matter from ancient forests and dinosaurs.

Oil from numerous sources has been verified to partially be from a geologically different age than the original sources. Scientists are finding the carbon-13 isotope associated with “abiotic” origin together with carbon-12 associated with biotic origin. Remarkably, as drilling techniques are allowing for deeper drilling, huge quantities of oil deposits are being discovered. Lately, huge finds are in the territories of Canada, Mexico, Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Russia, and the US.

Afraid of Reality

Raymond J. Learsy asks: Why Does Abiotic Oil Theory Ignite Peak Oil Theorists' Fulminations?? I think the answer is obvious. (Hat tip: Anaconda)

Abiotic Oil, calling into question the overarching theory that the origins of fossil fuel are of biological/organic origin was touched upon in my previous post, "Oil's Big Dirty Secret as Producers Rake in Hundreds of Billions," 04.12.08.

The comments to the post were wide ranging and the Peak Oil missionaries were apoplectic that one dared question their gospel intoning the sanctity of the biological origin of fossil fuels and its rapidly diminishing availability. Clearly the words "Abiotic Oil" stir up heated passions and clear concern among those in the oil patch who would be impacted were the theory to take hold. My post highlighted the issue without offering an opinion on Abiotic Oil Theory's viability. It did however attempt to outline the reasons why the oil industry would happily not have the concept of "Abiotic Oil" taken with any grain of seriousness.