Talk:Abiogenic petroleum origin
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From VfD:
Page describing a theory about petroleum being "byproducts of the earth's core" rather than fossil biomatter. There seems to be a small amount of literature extant on similar thoeries, but not enough for an encyclopedic article and not using this particular moniker. The language and tone of the article suggest that it may be original research.
Delete - TB 12:37, 17 May 2004 (UTC)- Okay, the cleaned article looks better. Abstain - TB 09:04, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
I think the article shoud be kept there since he is the only kid wiht that name on Google, and he is becoming more and more famous, as you can see, so why ot leave him there for a while?
- Keep, certainly. I've read about this theory before. Cleanup. Everyking 16:56, 17 May 2004 (UTC)
- Keep, it's a fringe theory but one with some history. Frankly I think it's wishful thinking (if it were true we might never run out of oil). The article could use some work, I guess. Wile E. Heresiarch 17:02, 17 May 2004 (UTC)
- Keep. We should also link this sometime to Fred Hoyle's similar theories, which may be what this is by another name. I suspect Hoyle has priority in fact. I still have a copy of his book The Unity of the Universe somewhere in storage, I'll dig it out sometime in the next year. Andrewa 17:41, 17 May 2004 (UTC)
- Keep, even if it might well be crackpot-y. Wikipedia seems to be a bit of a store for rather...non-mainstream ideas lately, and this one seems enyclopaedic enough to hold onto. That said, the text could probably use a reasonable reworking by somebody who knows the subject. Lord Bob 18:12, May 17, 2004 (UTC)
- Keep, but make it clear that this is a fringe "theory". -- Cyrius|✎ 18:30, May 17, 2004 (UTC)
- Keep. Have edited a bit (know something of the subject but not a lot...) The Land 20:07, 17 May 2004 (UTC)
- Keep. It needs some cleanup, but it's certainly wiki worthy. --Starx 03:47, 18 May 2004 (UTC)
end moved discussion
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Percent Vandium
I deleted "Some heavy crude oils have up to % in vanadium." from the trace metals section. If anyone know the %, please replace the sentence
Change title to "Abiogenic petroleum origin"?
There is a conference of the American Organization of Petroleum Geologists meeting this July in Vienna titled "Origin of Petroleum -- Biogenic and/or Abiogenic and Its Significance in Hydrocarbon Exploration and Production". Two things follow from this:
- The decision not to delete this article was a good one.
- The name that experts in the field use to refer to this theory is "abiogenic", not "abiotic".
The conference is described here (http://www.mail-archive.com/fogri@iagi.or.id/msg00802.html). Hyperion 01:20, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)
This presents an interesting dilemma. Google has 227 matches for "abiotic petroleum" and 144 for "abiogenic petroleum". With such a small sample size, how to determine which is more mainstream? I think the answer is that neither are. And it's obvious that Wikipedia and its mirrors have already significantly contributed to the count of "abiotic" matches. Looking over the first few non-wikipedia links, it seems we have "Russian theorys of abiotic petroleum origin" vs. "Thomas Gold's theory of abiogenic petroleum". So it's hard to guess which should be used. Given that we have journalists, who report on what Russian scientists are doing, saying "abiotic" (and journalists are notoriously inaccurate about such things) and Thomas Gold and AAPG saying "abiogenic", I tend to agree that it should be abiogenic. --Yath 01:43, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I'm glad you agree. The program for the conference that I mentioned above is available in some sort of Russian bulletin board here (http://www.ateism.ru/cgi-bin/atheism/msgbook/tema.pl?t=m764&n=250). The Russian papers to be presented at this conference also use "abiogenic" and not "abiotic" (although there is one instance of "abiogenous"). So it looks like the Russians are willing to go along with the native English speakers about what the theory should be called in English. (If you look at the actual meaning of the words, "biogenic" makes more sense. My dictionary defines "biotic" as "relating to life or to living things". Nobody thinks of oil as a living thing. The origin of oil is what's in question. And that is reflected in the "genic" suffix.)
In the entry, I deleted the downside that was given for the theory:
- Evidence against this hypothesis comes from the observable fact that known oil deposits are found within geological strata, suggesting they were deposited by sedimentation.
"Observable fact" sounds partisan, and furthermore, oil deposits are sometimes found way below the geological strata where they belong according to the biogenic theory, so this isn't really a fact at all. I substituted for this a finding published in Nature which seems to be the main point now raised against the abiogenic theory, based on posts by people who called themselves petroleum geologists, who were defending the orthodox theory, on two different Web sites. I also added a link to the Nature paper. Hyperion 03:24, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Russian acceptance
An anonymous contributor changed my additions, changing my point that the abiogenic theory "is widely accepted in Russia" to the observation that it "has support by a large minority of geologists in Russia". Does this contributor know something I don't know? If so, I'd like to hear about it. Does he know Russian oil engineers, or read Russian, so that he gets his inside information by such means? (Although I haven't run into any Russian oil engineers lately, I am fluent in Russian.) The Web site (http://www.gasresources.net/) advocating what it calls "the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins" is rather adamant that the abiogenic theory has gone through extensive examination in Russia, and is now accepted by Russian scientists as correct. Does the anonymous contributor have any information which indicates that this is not the case? If not, I will change the relevant passage back to what it was before, and expect that the anonymous contributor will not modify it again. -- Hyperion 05:10, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Possible conflict of interest
If I ever had any doubt about the abiogenic theory, it is now gone. The IP address of the anonymous contributor was 134.132.117.252. By doing a reverse DNS lookup on that address, I got the host name tuxedo.zycor.lgc.com. If you go to www.lgc.com, the site identifies itself as belonging to "Landmark, A Halliburton Company".
Now, if Halliburton needs to tamper with wikipedia articles discussing the abiogenic theory of petroleum, who can doubt that the theory is correct?
Hyperion 05:28, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I appreciate the gravity of the potential conflict of interest that such edits by a Haliburton employee would imply. But, it would be better to restrict ad hominem arguments as much as humanly possible, especially when the evidence is so thin. --Yath 05:35, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I'm against ad hominem arguments as much as the next person, but I don't think I made an ad hominem argument. The problem wasn't that it was a Halliburton employee that made this edit, but that he concealed his identity. I do not see why this kind of behavior should be tolerated. There is a ban at wikipedia against posting "original research". But what this person with access to a Halliburton computer did was at least as bad, as far as I can tell.
If wikipedia bans original research, should it not also ban postings by employees that serve to maintain those employees' company's share price?
Hyperion 06:46, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- Yes, the evidence is very nicely circumstantial, but it is just that, circumstantial. Another thing to note is that this person may actually be an expert on the matter, and stopped experts from editing is a bad thing, a very bad thing, IMHO. More info would be interesting. Burgundavia 07:52, Jun 29, 2004 (UTC)
With regard to a ban-- that sort of activity would fall under existing NPOV rules. So it's up to individuals to enforce it. And I agree with Burgundavia that we shouldn't assume the edit is incorrect. --Yath 08:07, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I agree with the responses above and withdraw my objection. It was poor judgement on my part to suppose in effect that every employee of Halliburton has the credibility of Dick Cheney. ;-) I offer my apologies for my outburst to everyone, and especially the person who made the edit, if he or she reads this.
I looked at a long thread (http://www.websib.ru/cgi-bin/atheism/msgbook/tema.pl?t=m764&n=18) on the source of petroleum on a Russian bulletin board on which experts post. Judging from that discussion, it's very possible that supporters of the abiogenic theory are in a minority even in Russia. (One thing that you learn from that thread is that petroleum geology is definitely not a mature science, a point that should perhaps be made explicitly in the article -- if that is not clear already from the very fact that two such different theories have existed side-by-side from over a century.) So we should by all means assume that the edit is correct.
By the way, I see that someone has added a link to the Gas Resources Corp. site. That's fine, but the literature at the site is what gave me the strong impression that the abiogenic theory is virtually universally accepted in Russia. (They even had a paper accusing the orthodox, biogenic view of being "junk science", but they've taken that off now, possibly because of the upcoming conference...)
Hyperion 19:04, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Integration
As you've noticed, I moved stuff from fossil fuel over here. So that more general article can have a summary and details can be expounded upon here. This also includes stuff that was in petroleum so there is less duplication. References in those articles lead here, so we should collect here info on the topic. I haven't looked at biogenic petroleum origin. You also can see I included the "Deep Hot Biosphere" concept as a modification to the pure abiogenic theory, although evidence supporting pure abiogenic alternatives should be pointed out. (SEWilco 08:33, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC))
- Yes, I think the rearrangement works very well. It's good that you've added information about the "deep hot biosphere concept". My impression is that the Russian scientists in the field don't take this addition of Gold's to the abiogenic theory seriously. Their view seems to be that what's keeping petroleum geology from becoming a mature science is that thermodynamic considerations are ignored by geologists, because of their training. Meanwhile -- from reading a Russian article in the popular press about the debate, which said both the abiogenic and the biogenic explanations might be required to account for all the empirical evidence, and seemed to be based not just on the popular writer's conjectures, but on the views of many Russian scientists working in the field -- I got the impression that the abiogenic theory can't really emerge as the decisive victor without Gold's additions.
- So it might be helpful to say that there are two fronts in the debate aside from geology -- thermodynamics and the issue of whether one needs to admit the role of extremophile microbes in order to account for the traces of biological matter found in petroleum -- but geologists are slow to look at these issues from outside geology, and fewer still seem willing to consider both, and this seems to be the reason why the two theories go on existing side by side for so long without one emerging as the decisive victor. (By the way, the "first Russian scientist" Lomonosov seems to be the one who introduced the "fossil" theory, so that would place its origins in the 18th, not the 19th century. Someone mentioned in the Russian bulletin board I mentioned above that Lomonosov also considered the abiogenic hypothesis before rejecting it. If that is true, it would mean that both theories have existed side by side since the 18th century.) -- Hyperion 10:23, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Recent experiments supporting abiogenic theory
I'm bringing [1] (http://www.carnegieinstitution.org/news_releases/news_040913.html) to your notice. I don't have time to incorporate this into the article, but maybe others can. It mentions new experiments that support the theory, and the results of which are being published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. --Chan-Ho Suh 11:56, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)
Cold Planet Formation
I am a bit surprosed to read about "Cold planetary formation" of planet earth as supporting the abiotic origin of petroleum. To the best of my knowledge, current thought assumes a genesis of earth via collision of planetisemals, leading to a molten state. Also, the origin of the moon, as currently accepted (see Giant impact theory) has a hot early earth. -- Schewek 19:50, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- How hot everything got during accretion depends upon how hot the planetesimals were, how much of them got hot, and how much time they had to cool off before the next impact. The Moon's origin would have heated up the part of the Earth and Theia which splashed...although the Moon is still leaking methane so somehow carbon deposits ended up in there too. However, there also is carbon in magma, so heat doesn't rule out the presence of carbon. -- SEWilco 08:41, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- I'm sorry but I think there is a refuse about the temperature of the Earth during Adean eon: the zircon(s) crystallize (and start to preserve uranium isotopes) at the temperature of 1100°C, not 100°C. As I know the ipotesis of a cold earth is based on the assumption that the zircons are extraterrestrial (from a meteorite impact) and the low temperature is estimated using Carbon stable isotopes. The rock hosting the zircons is metamorphic and so is very hard to accept that carbon isotopes should be able to preserve the same ratio at high pressures and temperature. But if you want, this is the article: John W. Valley, William H. Peck, Elizabeth M. King and Simon A. Wilde: A cool early Earth; Geology; April 2002; v. 30; no. 4; p. 351-354; cheers, Furins(it.wiki) (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussioni_utente:Furins)
- Try A Cool Early Earth (http://www.geology.wisc.edu/zircon/cool_early/cool_early_home.html) also. I rephrased to refer to liquid water rather than 100°C, as liquid water depends upon much more than temperature. (SEWilco 19:31, 5 May 2005 (UTC))
Extra-terrestrial methane gives suppot to abiogenic petroleum theory?
I fail to see how extra-terrestial mathane supports the abiogenic petroleum theory. Alan Liefting 08:09, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- Methane in places where it probably was not generated by life supports its origin from other than biogenic sources. Panspermia is a possibility, although less likely than spacegoing dinosaurs who liked carrying swamps with them...
- Primordial methane, or any carbon material, in the Earth would have come from extraterrestrial material.
- Other objects in our solar system formed from similar material, so their composition is of interest. (SEWilco 08:22, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC))
Some changes
I have tried to clean up this article a bit. I have also tried to improve the "evidence for biogenic" section and in general balance the tone of the article. Gwimpey 22:16, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)