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

As Infinite Abiotic Oil Spews In Gulf, BP CEO Goes Yachting

New York Post: As oil spews in Gulf, BP's CEO at UK yacht race.

CEO Tony Hayward took time off Saturday to attend a glitzy yacht race around England’s Isle of Wight.

This is clearly a deliberately orchestrated and human engineered "disaster." The blatant plan is to cause an abiotic oil spill so bad that politicians restrict future exploration in order to cause an infinite commodity to become a limited resource.

Infinite Hydrocarbon Blowout

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

Monica Davis: Oil Blowout Fumes Sickening People In Atlanta--Geologists Says. (Hat tip: Rebecca Tillero)

Chris Landau has made a living as an engineer for decades. South African by birth, American citizen by naturalization and choice, Landau is at odds with many mainstream geologists. He is a proponent of the inorganic oil creation process. This process differs from what we were all taught in school. It poses that oil is the byproduct of natural deep earth processes and that oil doesn't come "from decayed plant matter."

As a product from earth processes, the stuff we call oil contains a variety of toxic, deadly chemicals. Landau says the Gulf catastrophe is caused by an oil well blow out. This is where gas pressure builds up and blows the well head. In this particular case, not only has the well head been blown, but the massive pressure inside the well, driven by a pool of gas that is thousands of miles deep and 20 miles across, have fractured the sea bottom. This has created additional splits in the earth, which allow more oil to bleed out of the earth, like black blood spewing from the earth's arteries.

Landau says this is not a "spill." A spill is finite.

Abiotic

William B. Stoecker: Abiotic.

Decades ago, some maverick researchers, most of them in the old Soviet Union, proposed that the fossil fuel theory is incorrect, and that most oil and gas is of abiotic origin, formed from methane and other carbon compounds trapped in the Earth when it was formed. They suggest that there is no “peak oil,” but that vast amounts of oil and gas are slowly rising from Earth’s mantle and the lower crust, enough to last us for thousands or even millions of years. Dmitri Mendeleev, a chemist, was one of the Soviet proponents of abiotic origin; many of the others were geologists. French chemist Marcellin Berthelot and American astronomer Thomas Gold were among the first Westerners to agree with them. Gold even convinced Swedish authorities to drill a test well in granite with no organic sediments over, under, or in it, and small amounts of oil were found. Oil and gas have been found elsewhere when wells penetrated below all the sediments, but skeptics claim that the oil somehow leaked down from overlying sediments, or that the rock layers had so folded and twisted that the igneous basement rocks were now above some sediments.

In the mud on ocean bottoms, vast amounts of methane are trapped in frozen hydrates or methane clathrates, far exceeding all the gas ever produced or found in proven reserves. Found at depths over 300 meters, the methane molecules, due to cold and pressure, are trapped in a kind of cage of water molecules and mixed with the sediments. The methane trapped in one small area off the coast of the Carolinas could, if we could extract it, supply the US with over fifty years of natural gas…and this is but a small part of the worldwide supply of clathrates. We may or may not be able to develop safe and economical ways of tapping this resource, but the sheer volume of the gas is hard to explain with the biological theory. The carbon alone in the clathrates is estimated at twice the total amount of carbon in all other “fossil fuel” deposits, and these include coal, which is mostly carbon.

Helium gas is found in some gas wells, enough to make it profitable to extract it. This light and inert gas, because it cannot burn, is used in balloons and airships. Being inert and non-reactive it cannot form compounds, including organic compounds. So everyone is forced to admit that helium is abiotic; it was trapped inside the Earth when our planet was formed. So if helium was trapped, why not methane?

Interstellar gas and dust clouds contain a variety of hydrocarbons and other organic compounds, obviously not formed from marine algae, compounds such as methane, formaldehyde, acetylene, ethylene, ketene, methanol, and benzene. In addition, the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan is mostly methane, and no one seriously believes that oceans of liquid water and marine organisms exist on Titan, which is far from the Sun and colder than dry ice. So if methane and other hydrocarbons form in space and can be trapped on Titan, obviously some must have been trapped in the early Earth. In addition, some meteorites, called carbonaceous chondrites, contain kerogen, the supposed residue of marine organisms which is converted into petroleum…but there are no marine organisms in space, largely because there are no oceans. Currently accepted theory holds that the Earth was formed by the accretion of meteors, asteroids, and comets, so, along with the methane, significant amounts of kerogen had to have been trapped in our planet at its birth.

So it is virtually certain that much oil and gas (but probably not all of it) is of abiotic origin, and the amounts remaining are likely to far exceed all that we have tapped so far.

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.