[tpaine]

billorites: "-- Now, a couple of decades after Gold first suggested that hydrocarbons are formed deep underground by geological processes and not just below the surface by biological decay, there is increasing evidence that he may have been on to something. --"

Perhaps Gold also suggested a non-biological mechanism for generating the microscopic fossils that are found in association with petroleum deposits.
21 Physicist

Yes, he did. -- Try reading his book..

And btw, how do you explain the existence of 'gas giant' planets, if methane is not produced non-biologically?

[Strategerist]

There is a vast, vast, vast, vast difference between Methane and the hydrocarbons in petroleum.

Quite the strawman construction there...precisely nobody has ever claimed all methane is biological.

[arthurus]

how do you explain the existence of 'gas giant' planets

Millenia ago the Jupiterians got addicted to beans and cabbage. It was the end of their world.