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“Their theory is that crude is a natural occurring substance found in the molten center of the earth and works its way out to the ‘relative surface’ of the earth through fissures in the mantel.”

Only one problem with their theory, why is oil only found in ancient seabeds?

Two problems:

1. According to the abiogenic theory, crude does not originate in the "molten center" of the earth or in magma but from premordial methane trapped in the mantle under high pressure (also, as far as "fossil" goes, there are entire moons of liquid hydrocarbons).

2. Petroleum has been found in all sorts of geology (such as under basement rock), not only in "ancient seabeds." Methane, the feedstock of petroluem according to the abiogenic theory, seeps up everywhere. It's just that there are certain geological formations or geological conditions that can more easily trap petroleum, just as there are certain environmental conditions that facilitate the accumulation of methane, such as the cold and water pressure that trap undersea methane hydrates.

Thomas Gold's original monograph, The Origin of Methane (and Oil) in the Crust of the Earth, Thomas Gold, U.S.G.S. Professional Paper 1570, The Future of Energy Gases, 1993 And a collection of his papers is HERE.

You can also look at this (though, it may not work if you're not a member of a library with a subscription to the journal): Kropotkin, P. N. (1985) Degassing of the Earth and the Origin of Hydrocarbons, published in the International Geology Review, 27, 1261-1275. I'll see if my school has such a subscription. Freepmail me.

Here's an excerpt from one of those Kropotkin papers I was able to get online through my connection to the school:

KOUDRYAVTSEV

N. A. Koudryavtsev revived Mendeleyev's hypothesis on a modern basis. In 1959 his monograph Oil, Gas and Solid Bitumens in Volcanic and Metamorphic Rocks was published in Leningrad; 1963 saw the publication of his mongrah Deep Crustal Faults and Oil Fields, and in 1973 his basic work appeared under the title Genesis of Oil and Gas. It summed up all the most important data that confirmed the inorganic origin of hydrocarbons known at the time.

In this work a very important empirical generalization was formulated whic is now known as "Koudryavtsev's rule." This rule is formulated as follows: "The most important of regularities that are observed in all oil-bearing areas, without exception, is that if oil or gas are present in one horizon, they will be present also at all lower levels, at least as traces of migration through the cracks." This statement is valid, whatever the composition of the rocks, the condition of their formation, ) both metamorphic and crystalline rocks), and the content of organic matter in them. "At those levels at which there are good collectors and traps, accumulations of industrial interest may occur." (7, p 140)

In the following twenty years Koudryavtsev's rule was confirmed without any exceptions in all oil fields which had been drilled to a sufficient depth. The most convincing examples are those where gas-saturated waters and oil fields are found at the lowermost layers of the sedimentary cover, directly situation on the crystalline basement. In such locations there would be no place for any so-called "source rocks" of oil between the lowermost sedimentary levels and the basement. The only source of hydrocarbons may be the cracks, the channels of outgassing from even greater depths. The presence of fluids, probably with admixtures of free hydrogen and hydrocarbons, in the middle and lower part of the continental crust and in the mantle at depths of 40 to 180 kilometers is suggest by the presence of layers with increased electroconductivity. These are seen in the data of magnetotelluric soundings and electrosounding using the MHD generators (1, 8).

An outstanding example confirming Koudryavtsev's rule is provided by the oil fields of the Volga-Ural region. Here the main oil fields were found in the multicolored and red colored sediments of the middle Devonian, deposited under oxidizing conditions, and this excludes any possibility that the oil was produced in that region. These oil deposits are located below the upper devonian layers which are rich in organic matter. Since oil is lighter than water and migrates only upward, this implies that the upper Devonian layers could not be the source of the oil. Some oil-rich levels in the lower part of the middle Devonian are situated almost at the surface of the crystalline basement or only a few meters from it.

Similar interrrelations have been known for a long time in the oil-containing formations of the North American platform (Kansas/Wyoming). This is in the lowermost layers of the Precambrian, where oil is situated in sandy rocks and in granites and gneisses on the surfaces of the crystalline basement. In recent decades similar facts were discovered in Russia during the survey of the fields of the Baykit anticline and the Nep-Botuob anticline on the Siberian platform. Oil and gas are seen here in correlation with deposits of the lower Cambrian and upper Proterozoic layers, i.e. with lower layers of the sedimentary blanket lying on the crystalline basement. IN the Verkhnye-Chonsk oil field oil is soaking the weathered crust of the basement and oil and gas condensate inflows are observed in the oil wells drilled into the basement (6). Similar relations are found in the USA (Illinois/Michigan), in Australia, in Oman (oil field Birba in deposits of the lower Cambrian) and in China (oil field Xinglontai and others)(12).

ln the Algerian Sahara the connection between the oil-bearing structures and meridionally oriented faults is noticeable. The oil fields are connected with deposits of Triassic, middle Carbonaceous, Devonian, Ordovician and Cambrian. (In the last one the main body of oil of the oil field Hassi-Massoud is concentrated.) Oil is encountered even deeper, up to the upper cracked part of the crystalline basement of the African platform that was reached by the drill. IN the basement rocks themselves and in in layers of the upper Paleozoic lying on it, the presence of oil is known in the fields Rurd-Bagel and Recullier, that of gas in fields Zarzaitin, In-Akamil and others.

In many cases the connection is apparent between the oil and gas fields on the one hand and structures situated above the fault lines or adjacent to grabens and rifts on the other hand. The same is noticeable in the locations of oil and gas fields in the North Sea, in the Don-Dniepter depression and in the West Siberian lowland. In the multi-layered fields where accumulations of oil are concentrated at several levels, situated one below the other, a degassing pipe is seen through which the migration of hydrocarbons appears to have taken place, reaching from the lower to the upper part of the stratigraphic section. For example the Har-yagin oil province on the edge of the Pechora basin contains 35 oil fields at levels of various ages, from middle Devonian to lower Triassic. Inside such a vertical zone the major and minor oil and gas condensate fields are encountered with abnormally high pressures in horizontal slabs as well as in "inverted cups" which represent geochemical and temperature anomalies and contain traces of the transport of hydrocarbon gases. The high pressure in the liquid an pores suggests intrusion of these fluids from depth. Apparently they penetrated from subcrustal layers of the upper mantle where there is a reducing environment. A fluid-gas phase here contains much hydrogen accompanied by methane, together with nitrogen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide and helium.

New confirmations of the theory of N.A. Koudryavtsev are shown by studies of the fluid-gas phase exuding from the ocean floor at the so-called "black smokers". and also by the discovery of methane hydrates in deposits of the continental slope crossed by faults, as well as by the presence of bitumens contained in the carbonaceous chondrite meteorites.