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A. Gold’s theory of “seeps’ has been widely challenged. B. There are different varieties of crude oil as well as coal. C. Coal is the rare fuel that can be directly traced to peat and then to peat bogs or swamps.

A. Not surprising. It's not a theory of seeps that has been challenged since those seeps are just a matter of fact, but his version of the earliest theory of the origin of petroleum as being abiogenic rather than biogenic, coming from primordial methane formed by heat and pressure gradients in the mantle and crust into petroleum. His track record, though, is extremely good.
B. There are many different varieties of crude, true, but there are also crudes that have the same chemical signatures though coming from strata of wildly differing origins.
C. 'Coal' is like 'cancer.' There are different substances of different origins that are all referred to as coal. The idea that anthracite coal comes through a progression of peat to lignite to bituminous to anthracite is an intellectual construct.

Anthracite and bituminous coal, other than moisture and % volatiles, are not that different. It could be closely compared to met coal...
Crudes exhibit differing characteristics, just a coal does, I believe related to their age.