Bob Hazen Interview

Dr. Hazen is a research scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Geophysical Laboratory and Clarence Robinson Professor of Earth Science at George Mason University: Bob Hazen: The Trumpeter Of Astrobiology.

Suzan Mazur: Are you looking at abiotic oil at all?

Robert Hazen: That is a very different subject, and there are many resources. There is a new book on oil by Eric Roston. I just chaired a conference at the Carnegie Institution, called the deep carbon cycle. It's on the Carnegie web site. We had experts from all over the world. You can see most of the lectures, including lectures by Russian scientists who believe that petroleum is virtually all abiotic. And hear lectures by American petroleum geologists who think oil is virtually all biological. It’s still an unresolved issue.

Unresolved issue? Um, not really: Dismissal of the Claims of a Biological Connection for Natural Petroleum.

Summary here.

Session four on deep abiotic synthesis of organic molecules (Thomas McCollom of the University of Colorado served as discussion leader) considered what is perhaps the most controversial aspect of the deep carbon story. Barbara Sherwood-Lollar (University of Toronto) provided an overview of the topic, and examined recent experiments that inform the ongoing abiotic-controversy. Andrew Steele (Carnegie Institution) described recent observations of abiogenic organic matter in Martian meteorites and Archean sediments, and presented new experimental data on a possible mantle synthesis mechanism. Vladimir Kutcherov (Stockholm University, Sweden) and Vitaly Flid (Moscow State Academy, Russia) presented experimental and field evidence for a significant abiotic contribution to petroleum and natural gas deposits, in the tradition of the Russian-Ukrainian school of petroleum formation.

Interview With A Cultist

Suzan Mazur interviews fossil fuel cultist Roger Buick: Buick: Follow The H2O Or Energy, Not Selection

Suzan Mazur: I was wondering also, since you discovered the oldest oil, if you could comment on the possible existence of abiotic oil that’s now being talked about a lot.

Roger Buick: It’s an argument that’s been around for a long time. Thomas Gold wrote about it.

Hilarious response demonstrating total ignorance. Any idea how long the argument has been around? It's been around since 1804 but of course Buick has no clue. Another dead give away is that he mentions Thomas Gold but adds nothing else of content. Buick is blatantly ignorant on the subject and therefore throws her the Thomas Gold bone so as to appear knowledgeable. Whenever you hear a biogenic theorist mention Thomas Gold and then stop, as though that's all they need to know or say on the subject, you know they are clueless about deep abiotic petroleum origin.

Suzan Mazur: I know Bob Hazen hosted a conference on it earlier this year at Carnegie. He mentioned that the Russians were very much behind the existence of abiotic oil. Is the idea of abiotic oil simply a way of prolonging the life of the oil industry? Or is abiotic oil a reality?

Roger Buick: We know that there are several different geochemical processes that can synthesize complex hydrocarbons out of very simple molecules and we also know that some of those processes may have been more active on an early Earth that had greater rates of volcanic activity, hydrothermal alteration and things like that.

So it’s at least plausible that the 3.2 billion year old oil we found did in fact have an abiotic origin.

So here we have Buick saying that all natural petroleum COULD "in fact have an abiotic origin".

Roger Buick: We can’t prove it one way or the other.

So here we have Buick saying that petroleum's origin CANNOT be proven. But you only need to wait for the next answer for him to contradict himself.

Suzan Mazur: Why not?

Roger Buick: We can’t chemically analyze the oil because it’s in such minute quantities. But we can go to slightly younger rocks and we can tease apart oil in those and find out what molecules it’s composed of. And when we go to rocks 2.4 billion years ago (something we published last year and the beginning of this year), you can analyze that oil in detail and you find molecules that could only have been produced by living organisms. Really complex multi-ring hydrocarbon molecules.

And if you go to every oil deposit we know of on the Earth today, and you analyze that oil – it also has these biological indicator molecules. Abiotic oil might be produced now. It might have been more significant in the past. But it’s not a significant component of any oil reservoir that we know of on Earth. And geochemistry shows that quite conclusively.

LOL. Hilarious. Now he contradicts himself and adds a bunch of unsubstantiated nonsense that is simply wrong. The only biological molecules in crude oil are contaminants. What biological indicator molecules is Buick referring to? Geochemistry shows precisely the opposite of what Mr. Buick claims: ICP-MS analysis shows conclusively that all oil has inorganic geochemistry.