Posted on 01/03/2003 9:00:10 AM PST by RightWhale
It's a very interesting thread especially given the question of where does all the oil come from. The researcher from Woods Hole I seem to recall her name being Jan Wheelen (sp?) theorized deep earth microbial interaction with oil seeping upwards from even deeper is what gives crude oil some aspect of an organic signature that resulted in it being called fossil fuel.
In the book ‘Rare Earth’ from a decade ago, Ward and Brownlee authors, the possibility of microbes inside any and all rock on any planet anywhere seems to be a given. IOW life exists throughout the known universe inside rocky planets. How deep the life goes would probably depend on temperature since it gets hot down there and eventually the rock becomes molten, so there is probably a range of depths where the microbes could exist.
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