Posted on 12/02/2005 7:00:55 PM PST by seastay
New study shows methane on Saturn's moon Titan not biological NASA scientists are about to publish conclusive studies showing abundant methane of a non-biologic nature is found on Saturn's giant moon Titan, a finding that validates a new book's contention that oil is not a fossil fuel.
"We have determined that Titan's methane is not of biologic origin," reports Hasso Niemann of the Goddard Space Flight Center, a principal NASA investigator responsible for the Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer aboard the Cassini-Huygens probe that landed on Titan Jan. 14. Niemann concludes the methane "must be replenished by geologic processes on Titan, perhaps venting from a supply in the interior that could have been trapped there as the moon formed."
The studies announced by NASA yesterday will be reported in the Dec. 8 issue of the scientific journal Nature.
"This finding confirms one of the key arguments in 'Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil,'" claims co-author Jerome R. Corsi. "We argue that oil and natural gas are abiotic products, not 'fossil fuels' that are biologically created by the debris of dead dinosaurs and ancient forests."
Methane has been synthetically created in the laboratory, Corsi points out, "and now NASA confirms that abiotic methane is abundantly found on Titan."
The realization that hydrocarbons are produced inorganically throughout our solar system was a key insight that led Cornell University astronomer Thomas Gold to write his 1998 book, "The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil Fuels." Gold wrote:
It would be surprising indeed if the earth had obtained its hydrocarbons only from a source that biology had taken from another carbon-bearing gas carbon dioxide which would have been collected from the atmosphere by photo-synthesizing organisms for manufacture into carbohydrates and then somehow reworked by geology into hydrocarbons. All this, while the planetary bodies bereft of surface life would have received their hydrocarbon gifts by purely abiogenic causes. Gold wryly noted that he was sure there had not been any "big stagnant swamps on Titan" to produce the biological debris that conventionally trained geologists think was required on Earth to produce oil and natural gas as a "fossil fuel."
"If petroleum and natural gas are abiotic as we maintain in 'Black Gold Stranglehold,'" Corsi commented, "then the 'peak oil' fear that we are going to run out of oil may have been based on a giant misconception."
Paradigms in science change slowly and with great resistance, he noted, "But NASA has given us today incontrovertible evidence that Titan has abundant inorganic methane."
"If the scientists have ruled out that biological processes created methane on Titan, why do petro-geologists still argue that natural gas on Earth is of biological origin?" Corsi asked.
That hardly indicates that the oil was created. It could just as easily have seeped in from another underground reservoir.
The theory is that oil is manufactured at great depths
That's the theory. What's lacking is convincing evidence. Not only do you need to find direct evidence that it is happening, but you have to find evidence that it is happening at an appreciable rate (i.e. one barrel of oil every ten years is not appreciable).
>> Paradigms in science change slowly and with great resistance, he noted, "But NASA has given us today incontrovertible evidence that Titan has abundant inorganic methane."
So it's not all old dinosaur crap afte rall ?........:o)
We have done that in the past, of course. It's just that the productive zones come from eons prior to the dinosaurs.
The kooks can believe whatever they want, but the people with the money to risk know what they're doing and why.
You'll notice methane isn't petroleum.
What do you think of this?
Makes sense that if you have Hydrogen, Carbon, and a reducing agent under tremendous heat and pressure, you end up with simple hydrocarbons.
And we know how easy it is for simple HC chains to link up and become heavier.
But no doubt there are biochemical markers in SOME oils.
I think there are both processes going on, and it will never be an either/or proposition.
Seems kinda silly to base the concept of "peak production" on existing fields. No wonder nobody wants to explore anymore ;-)
Read the book,there is plenty of convincing evidence if you simply open your mind and look at it realistically instead of through lens covered by years of brain washing. If oil didn't form from Dinos and vegetation, which it didn't, then it was formed from something else, this something else is still occuring very deep in the earth. Read about it and then decide and don't close your mind so swiftly.
If you add up all the known oil, regardless of its recoverability under current price structures, we have just scratched the surface. While we may have a shortage at $20/barrel, at $60/barrel Canada has as much oil as Saudi Arabia. At $100/barrel, North America alone has enough oil for the next century.
"Peak oil" indeed.
Ps. there were far larger amounts than one barrel of oil every 10 years, what an idiotic statement. They wouldn't even be able to measure that small of an amount. That remark alone tells me you know nothing about this subject at all, or worse, being sarcastic to someone you know nothing about because you assume you are superior in knowledge or intellect.
I have a theory that you are a troll that hates the idea of peak oil going the way of the dinosaurs -just like the dummycrats! LOL
If you go deep enough, you find more gas than oil. That is because deep hot burial eventually destroys large hydrocarbon molecules. High temperatures in laboratory experiments do the same thing.
Gold's theory turned conventional wisdom on its head and said that gas came up from below and was converted into heavier petroleum at shallower depths. Nice try, but he's dead wrong. Well, he's dead, that's for certain.
It didn't, of course. I mean, good God, can you people read? I've pointed out over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again that the biogenic theory of oil is that it comes from DEAD MICROSCOPIC MARINE PLANKTON IN SHALLOW OCEANS AND LARGE LAKES.
The author of the book you refer to is a complete moron and anyone who thinks the biogenic theory of oil that they're arguing against is that it's from dinosaurs and vegetation is so profoundly stupid I'm frankly amazed they can type and operate a computer.
We have to get people off the D@$#% cell phones first!
There is no "dead dinosaur" hypothesis.
Oil comes from marine plankton. Marine phytoplankton alone produce over 50 billion tons of biomass a year; multiply that by tens of millions of years, and that's a lot of biomass, even considering that most petroleum is destroyed by overheating or escapes to the surface and is destroyed when there's no capping formation over it.
Is the granite of igneous or metamorphic origin?
Regardless, it must be fractured, or there would be no reservoir.
Petroleum migrates--even to the surface.
It can be found in fractured volcanics, too, but they overlie the sedimentary rocks which are believed to be the source of the oil.
"Refilling" reservoirs are commonly in severely faulted areas, in relatively young rock, geologically speaking, and may be filling with oil and gas migrating along those faults and fractures from reservoirs that lie in deeper strata.
Until someone drills deeper there no one will know for certain, but why drill deeper if the oil is migrating to existing wellbores now? Fracture sets and faults which allow fluid migration really complicate drilling a well, and the production is already happening.
Many, many people have been taken in by this inorganic mantle source hype, and all they ever got was snake oil for their money.
Until bacteria feed on it and as they die off, guess what, it is called crude oil.
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