What if oil wasn’t a fossil fuel? What if the worlds oil supplies weren’t nearly as scarce as we’re led to believe? What if Soviet scientists discovered a truth the big oil companies have kept hidden from the public?
So most everyone has learned that oil comes from decomposing plants and animals that take millions and millions of years to form and that it’s found in the earths crust
A group of Russian/Ukrainian scientist would challenge the orthodoxies of Western Geology on the matter in 1994 at a conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico
The scientists would share their discovery of oil and gas in the Dneiper-Donets basin. The basin has no source rock which according to western conventions is necessary for oil formation
The scientists ran tests on the oil for ‘biological marker’ molecules and found none. The oil they discovered was at a depth deeper than any fossils should be found. They said the oil was abiotic-not derived from living organisms
However, these scientist weren’t the first Russians to stumble upon this knowledge. The groundwork for the Modern Russian-Ukrainian Theory of Deep, Abiotic Petroleum Origins had been laid since 1951 by Nikolai Kudryavstev
The theory was postulated much earlier than that and had prominent proponents such as the man who formulated the Periodic Law and created the periodic table, Dmitri Mendeleev, Russian chemist and inventor
The theory is that hydrocarbons which form the basis of oil and gas have their genesis deep down below the crust where methane or a methane mixture is generated
The mixture at high pressure and temperatures is forced up towards the surface through migration channels. During migration hydrocarbons pass through ‘catalytic zones’
These catalytic zones transform the hydrocarbons under the influence of nickel or ferrum and they are transformed to oil in the upper mantle of the earth
The oil and gas is then forced upwards and accumulates in porous sedimentary rock and cap rocks block its further upward flow. This is where oil and gas deposits come form
Obviously if this is true the big oil companies would have a vested interest in having the public believe the opposite: that oil is a scarce fossil fuel and that we may even peak soon
The reason that these ideas come from Russia is because Stalin realized after WWII that he would need to be oil independent and set in motion a project to research oil some have compared to the Manhattan project in its scope
This is just scratching the surface (much like most oil drilling) but if you want to dive into the deep hot biosphere with me tune into the latest episode of Things Observed and take a black pill - the abiotic pill open.spotify.com
We get into Rockefeller history, replenishing oil fields, the technocrat Malthusian who created peak oil theory and much more
Also in the episode I poke fun at oil coming from dinosaurs (McGowan quote does to) and also mention it seriously a few times but I do understand most scientist believe it comes from ancient marine plants and animals not dinos 🦕
So don’t take the Dino talk to seriously but I think everything else is solid. Also, I’m not a geologist or an expert so I’m down for any fair criticisms one may have. Just an idea I’ve been looking into and wanted to discuss. Ik this is a slippery subject (get it cuz oil)
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