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.
Next installment of the Kropotkin paper referenced earlier (together with the Introduction, skipped earlier):
INTRODUCTION The idea that oil has an inorganic genesis was first formulated and substantiated experimentally in the works of chemists M. Berteleau (1866), A. Biasson (1871), D. Kloetz, and most comprehensively in the works of D. I. Mendeleyev between 1877 and 1897. Medeleyev reported his theory at a meeting of the All-Russian Chemical Society in 1877 and later expounded it in the monograph
Foundations of Chemistry, a classic work of that time. In Mendeleyev's article on oil in the
Encyclopedic Vocabulary by Brockhaus and Efron (1897) we find the same arguments on the deep, inorganic origin of oil that are still used up to the present time: connection of the oil fields with deep crustal faults that act as channels for outgassing of the Earth, the presence of abnormally high gas pressures in some layers, inducing the gushing of oil, the presence of carbonaceous compounds including bitumens in meteorites, and in the deep Earth, the presence of a reducing environment, implied by inclusions of reduced iron in volcanic rocks. Treating the manganese-doped iron, containing 8% carbon, with hydrochloric acid, Mendeleyev obtained "a liquid mixture of hydrocarbons, which, according to its taste, its appearance and reactions is identical with natural petroleum." In 1897-1911 experimental studies of the inorganic synthesis of oil were carried out by A. Moisan, K.V. Kharichkov and other chemists. (6)
(Previous quoted section about Koudryavtsev goes here)
BOIKO In the theory of an organic origin of petroleum it was considered that oil is formed in deposits rich in biotgenic organic matter, the so-called "source rocks", at temperatures not exceeding 300 to 500 uC. A decisive fact against this theory came from the determination of the temperature of formation of oil from quantitative relations of isomers of identical chemical composition. Such studies were performed by G.E. Boiko, who considered the relations for the best studied isomers from 322 oils from various oil fields of the world, and the results of these analyses were published between 1950 and 1957. The relations for these isomers in the hydrocarbon system depend mainly on temperature. "The results obtained have shown that in all oils of the world, the isomers of aromatic hydrocarbons are in relative proportions corresponding to the equilibrium at the temperature of approximately 1600 to 1800 u K [apparently the degree symbol is coming out as a u with a caret, these values in K correspond to 1327 to 1527 C] and pressures of 2 to 4 x 10
3 MPA (3, pp. 39-42). Based on experimental data and thermodynamic computations, G.E. Boiko came to the conclusion that the synthesis of oil takes place in the upper mantle at depths of 40-160 kilometers. In any case it could not be synthesized within the sedimentary blanket where temperatures and pressures certainly do not correspond to the isomeric relations characteristic of all oils.
EIGENSON A. S. Eigenson came to analogous conclusions, based on mathematical modeling of the thermodynamics and the chemical composition of hydrocarbon systems, and he presented this in three papers. In these papers the following quantitative evidence for the abiogenic origin are given: the presence in some layers of oils and gas condensates of excessive amounts of methane; the absence of any traces of very high molecular weight substances like kerogen; the S/C ratio in most oils is many times greater than that of biomass (up to 75 atoms of sulfur to 1000 atoms of carbon in the Rosel-Point oil as compared to 0.7 in the biomass; more or less constant N/S ratio of oils in each area. Excessive abundance of sulfur compared to that in biomass is encountered also in gas systems. According to Anisimov, there are natural hydrocarbon gases known with H
2S content up to 78 to 98 mole concentration (9, 1991, p. 19).
A. S. Eigenson underscored the inconsistency of the argumentation for the biogenic origin of oils based on the presence in them of so-called molecular fossils. "Hunt considers as a typical molecular fossil the porpyrins that are a closed bridge structure of four pyrol rings which can readily produce complexes. Such derivatives of porphyrin as a magnesium complex are contained in chlorophyll of green plants and as complexes of valence two iron are contained in hemoglobin and cytochrome. But many items regarding this assumed molecular fossil remain unconsidered. First of all, in no oils even traces of iron and magnesium complexes have been found, but only vanadium and nickel ones. In 1967 Hodgeson and Baker published results on the formation of porphyrins and the action of electric discharge (simulated lightening [sic]) upon the gaseous mixture of a simulated paleo-atmosphere. The same authors have discovered porphyrins in the the organic part of the Orgueil meteorite."
[Inserted comment here:
Orgueil is one of five known meteorites belonging to the CI chondrite group (see meteorites classification), this being the largest (14 kg). This group is remarkable for having a composition that is essentially identical to that of the sun, excluding gaseous elements like hydrogen and helium.
Because of its extraordinarily primitive composition and relatively large mass, Orgueil is one of the most-studied meteorites. One notable discovery in Orgueil was a high concentration of isotopically anomalous xenon called "xenon-HL". The carrier of this gas is extremely fine-grained diamond dust that is older than the solar system itself, known as presolar grains.]
"There are a number of other proofs of the possibility of abiogenic synthesis of both porphyrins and other compounds which had been identified with confidence as molecular fossils, for example isoprenoids." (9, 1991, p. 19).
GOLD The discovery of oil, deep in the Baltic Shield, may be considered a decisive factor in the hundred year old debate about the biogenic or abiogenic origin of oil. This discovery was made in deep wells that were drilled in the central part of the crystalline Baltic Shield, on the initiative of T. Gold. N. A. Koudryavtsev had attracted attention to the outflow of oil in the middle of the Precambrian shield in the annular structure of the Siljan Lake region of central Sweden. (7). In the opinion of some geologists this structure is an ancient paleozoic impact crater, in the opinion of others it is a paleo-volcano. In this structure there remained small sedimentary deposits of Ordovician age, up to 300 meters thick. Oil in small amounts was obtained there in the 18th century from wells. Because the thickness of the sedimentary rocks in the sites of the oil is so msall, N.A. Koudryavtsev believed that the oil comes from the Precambrian granite-gneiss basement. Sources of methane with admixtures of heavy hydrocarbons from the basement in the Baltic shield have been known for a long time in the Khibines area and in a number of oil fields of Sweden. Paraffin oils resembling those in crude oils were found at depths of 8.4 to 9.4 km in the Kola super-deep well, and bitumens were encountered along the whole section.
To be continued.