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As a topic, this is almost like evolution, as some people insist upon the dogma they received in High school. To these people, you MUST believe. As with climate change and evolution, we are told that the science is settled and that there is the science side and the anti-science side. This is all hogwash because the scientific process involves thinking for oneself and the generation of multiple, often mutually exclusive, hypotheses.

I don't know the scientific arguments for biotic or abiotic origins for oil, gas, and coal. It doesn't seem to me that this would be an easy topic to resolve. If the origin in biological, one would expect to find remains of clearly biological origin, but perhaps heat and pressure could eradicate the evidence. If the origin is not biological, some biological “contamination” might still have occurred. Perhaps the “science” on this would still focus on the prevalence or relative absence of biological material, and the use of judgment.

The idea that our oil, gas and coal have a biological origin suggests to some that “we will run out.” Even that claim is not certain. A “finite” amount can still be a whole lot. In the Carter years the EPA did a study that concluded that, with a modest increase in price, there would be enough natural gas to last a few thousand years. That's finite, certainly not infinite, but still a lot.

Has anyone estimated how much oil, gas and coal should exist based upon the premise of biological origins? Maybe we have pumped more oil than should exist. Perhaps known discoveries of coal are more than should exist.

The oil shales [actually kerogen in marlstones mostly — or so I have been told] of the Green River three corners area of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah are an oil deposit in the making. These shales would need to be burried more deeply to cook down the kerogen; sealed off from migrating to the surface and then accumulate in a trap .... and voila, an oilfield.

For most oil deposits, geologists can identify with someconviction [perhaps incorrectly but with conviction] the source rocks for the oil.