Posted on 10/16/2010 4:57:16 AM PDT by decimon
An innovative experiment at the University of Leicester that involved studying rotting fish has helped to create a clearer picture of what our early ancestors would have looked like.
The scientists wanted to examine the decaying process in order to understand the decomposition of soft-body parts in fish. This in turn will help them reconstruct an image of creatures that existed 500 million years ago.
Their findings have been published Oct. 13 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The work was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
The researchers, from the Department of Geology at the University of Leicester, studied the way primitive fish, such as hagfishes and lampreys, decompose to gain an impression of our early ancestry.
The team at Leicester (Rob Sansom, Sarah Gabbott and Mark Purnell) explain: "Our earliest fish-like relatives left fossil remains which have the potential to show us how the group to which we belong evolved from worm-like relatives. But there is a major problem -- people are familiar with bones, and teeth as fossils but do not perhaps realise that before these inventions our ancestors consisted of entirely soft bodied creatures. Eyes, organs, guts and muscles all decompose very quickly after death, and as any forensic scientist knows recognising rotted anatomy is difficult.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Ping
Rotting fish? I would not have enjoyed being part of this research unless my nose was terribly stopped up.
Yeah, these people still think that oil comes from dead animals.
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So...what do you think is the source of oil [petroleum]?
They were tall, heavly muscled blondes, with blue eyes.
Scandahoovians were obviously our early ancestors.
PROOF: Surstromming, lutefisk, hakarl....
‘So...what do you think is the source of oil [petroleum]?’
Gas stations?
Ugh! You guys are no help!
There is no doubt a reason why it’s known as ‘fossil fuel’.
Junk science???
Does this sound like junk science, folks?
Catagenesis Oil Origin
According to generally accepted theory, petroleum is derived from ancient biomass. It is a fossil fuel derived from ancient fossilized organic materials. The theory was initially based on the isolation of molecules from petroleum that closely resemble known biomolecules.
More specifically, crude oil and natural gas are products of heating of ancient organic materials (i.e. kerogen) over geological time. Formation of petroleum occurs from hydrocarbon pyrolysis, in a variety of mostly endothermic reactions at high temperature and/or pressure. Today’s oil formed from the preserved remains of prehistoric zooplankton and algae, which had settled to a sea or lake bottom in large quantities under anoxic conditions (the remains of prehistoric terrestrial plants, on the other hand, tended to form coal). Over geological time the organic matter mixed with mud, and was buried under heavy layers of sediment resulting in high levels of heat and pressure (diagenesis). This process caused the organic matter to change, first into a waxy material known as kerogen, which is found in various oil shales around the world, and then with more heat into liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons via a process known as catagenesis.
There were certain warm nutrient-rich environments such as the Gulf of Mexico and the ancient Tethys Sea where the large amounts of organic material falling to the ocean floor exceeded the rate at which it could decompose. This resulted in large masses of organic material being buried under subsequent deposits such as shale formed from mud. This massive organic deposit later became heated and transformed under pressure into oil.[18]
Geologists often refer to the temperature range in which oil forms as an “oil window”[19]—below the minimum temperature oil remains trapped in the form of kerogen, and above the maximum temperature the oil is converted to natural gas through the process of thermal cracking. Sometimes, oil which is formed at extreme depths may migrate and become trapped at much shallower depths than where it was formed. The Athabasca Oil Sands is one example of this.
Abiogenic Oil Origin
A small number of geologists adhere to the abiogenic petroleum origin hypothesis and maintain that hydrocarbons of purely inorganic origin exist within Earth’s interior. Chemists Marcellin Berthelot and Dmitri Mendeleev, as well as astronomer Thomas Gold championed the theory in the Western world by supporting the work done by Nikolai Kudryavtsev and Vladimir Porfiriev in the 1950s. It is currently supported primarily by Jack F. Kenney, Vladilen Krayushkin, and Vladimir Kutcherov.
The abiogenic origin hypothesis has not yet been ruled out, but it has little support among modern petroleum geologists. Its advocates consider that it is “still an open question” Extensive research into the chemical structure of kerogen has identified algae as the primary source of oil. The abiogenic origin hypothesis fails to explain the presence of these markers in kerogen and oil, as well as failing to explain how inorganic origin could be achieved at temperatures and pressures sufficient to convert kerogen to graphite. It has not been successfully used in uncovering oil deposits by geologists, as the hypothesis lacks any mechanism for determining where the process may occur. More recently scientists at the Carnegie Institution for Science have found that ethane and heavier hydrocarbons can be synthesized under conditions of the upper mantle.
There is(or was) a scientific “concensus” that man causes global warming too. Patently a load of crap but, there it is. Also, consider again the genesis of hydrocarbons on Saturn’s moon, Titan. Are there possibly little carbon units buzzing around in the atmosphere then falling to their deaths after mating, or whatever??? Consider also the politics/economics of potential “shortages” of fossil fuels that aren’t being created any more. Someone(the UN?) will necessarily be required to promulgate a global governance system to address this issue, no? If algore wasn’t so busy peddling his AGW snake oil, this would be right up his alley.
God created the universe and all the natural laws governing this planet and universe, too. That many scientists are ignorant of that fact doesn’t mean anything.
You got a problem with all that?
Wasn't it Mark Twain who said(paraphrasing), "Never let facts get in the way of a good story"? Well, it would appear to me the scientific community™, such as it is in its present manifestation, doesn't feel constrained by facts that might lead them to an honest conclusion, but does lead to a good story. Their conclusions have been bought and paid for with our tax dollars. But only if they reach the proper conclusions.
You got a problem with all that?
None whatsoever. ;^)
Since the majority of people I’ve associated with my life through have been scientists, I know your reasoning to be flippant and unsound.
You're right, I was unfair; I'm acquanted with a few myself. Many, maybe even most in the scientific community are still honest to God scientists but they aren't allowed to run with the big dogs. I thought this was fairly common knowledge around here; maybe not.
So...what do you think is the source of oil [petroleum]?
For example, the Jack Thomas Ward Report (the one on Spotted Owls) is an example I know of personally. Ward purposely excluded any exculpatory evidence demonstrating that these birds lived and survived outside of old growth forest in the Pacific Northwest.
One of my coworkers (I worked in the Nuclear Power Generation Industry for years) lived next door to a State of Washington wildlife biologist. This man, along with his biologist partner, observed a breeding pair of Spotted Owls nesting and rearing young in second-growth timber over a period of eleven years. This data was given to Ward but never included in the report. Same with the State of Oregon wildlife biologists; they too, had their data ignored.
Ward produced a biased, junk-science report that purposefully propagated a lie. He had no proof that these birds only survived in old growth forest, none at all. It was all done to shut down a thriving wood products industry and drive people out of rural areas.
I don't consider people like Ward to be real scientists. But I do understand where your thinking originated, I really do.
Petroleum has a biological basis which would tend to rule that out.
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