ETL,
Thanks for another fascinating post!
BTW, were you already familar with Cornell Dr. Thomas Gold book:
Deep Hot Biosphere?
He took so much harrassent from science community peers over his contention that oil & natural gas result from petro-hydrocarbons produced from deep subterrain microbes, and Not originating from ancient composed forests and animals.
Russian and Swede petro-geologists had long observed oil & nat gas deposits deep within massive solid granite domes that could have never hosted prehistoric forests and animal life.
Back in college several of the professors would comment on their belief (and science) that there were deep oil microbe sources, but they were on the fringes. IIRC they said it didn’t matter a whole lot with regard to exploration (that’s what my school taught) as it still needed to get trapped so we could get to it.
I recall a professional talk years after college where some guy proposed that these deep sources were on some sort of regular pattern across the globe - something like the dimples in a golf ball. Something to do with stresses and magnetic fields??? That seemed more like a quack theory, but who knows?
I worked for a company that was involved with drilling deep next to volcanic zones looking to extract deep oil-eating microbes for research into cleaning up oil spills and groundwater contamination.
While pretty cool stuff, I had visions of them growing these microbes, it getting out of control, and they end up eating all hydrocarbon materials (rubber hoses, etc.) I think the Andromeda Strain did that!?