While I don't actually have a dog in this fight, since I'm perfectly willing to believe the biological origin of oil...
Still... I do wonder why, if this is a continual process of compressing biomass into oil... where is the halfway made oil?
What is served by 'fighting' about how oil is formed? Why not use all available ideas to find more? Could it be that some men believe that oil should be scarce & expensive? Hmmmmmm.
Still... I do wonder why, if this is a continual process of compressing biomass into oil... where is the halfway made oil?
According to Gold, its way down deep, in the "hot biosphere". -- A blasphemous idea, apparently.
The process for coal is usually moss-like material, which becomes peat, which becomes Lignite, which becomes Bituminous coal, and which lastly becomes Anthracite coal. Oil formation is similar starting out with algae beds, which are mixed with sand and form sandstone, the sandstone becomes shale, then out of the shale the organic material is cooked and pressed out to migrate upward until it hits a non-porous layer where it is trapped and collects into an oil formation.
The answer to your question is then -- shale.