Regarding the story that oil is fossil in nature and has formed over
 million of years from trees and dinosaurs that we are now depleting
 in 1
 century,
 here is some technical reasoning of another explanation of how oil is
 formed. Much more credible.
 The key word is abiotic fuel. A search in google reveals many further
 links and info on that.

 Chemists will likely appreciate the attached article most.
 It does not look like that the dinosaurs had anything to do with it.
 How would they get down there anyway as people have questioned before.
 Looks like we will never run out of oil.

 Rolf Pfeiffer

 How much oil would you get if you highly compressed and heated a dead
 alligator?
 I don't really want to start an argument on this subject so please, if
 you have any
 scholarly information that supports or specifically counters this
 theory, I
 would like to know about it. I'll post the resultant pdf to the web
 site as
 interesting information in the same place as this one will be posted.
 There are lots of questions out there on this subject. For example;
 Why oil shale?
 Why tar sands in some places and not others? Why is oil found one or
 two miles
 down?

 -----------------------------------------------------------
 BTW here is a method of separating scientific BS from truth.
 If a person proposes a theory on something and devises an
 experiment or apparatus to prove that theory then that person
 deserves respect. Anybody can build an identical apparatus and run
 the same experiment proving or dis proving the proposed theory. That
 is the
 way science works and advances. Anybody merely attacking the messenger
 without
 reproducing the experiment regardless of their qualifications
 should be ignored.


 Paul Lamar

 Another link to the scholarly information and sources of the two
 articles you and I have posted. I am only the messenger.
 http://www.gasresources.net/index.htm

 I am sure the western oil companies know all that.
 It is just the public information and belief and the University
 teachings are still based on the old findings of 1757 of the Russian
 Geologist Mikhail Lomonossov who believed the oil is biological in
 nature.

 Considering the complexity of the various hydrocarbons, it is much
 more
 plausible that it is formed under high pressure and temperature as are
 the conditions in the lower earth mantle. Good question, how much oil
 would a dead alligator produce, likely none.

 Rolf Pfeiffer

An interesting discussion.

Jerry Hey


Rolf,

Very good post and interesting theory and at those depths and pressures
entirely plausible.  For sedimentary formations containing coal, oil
shale, and perhaps tar sands, the accompanying methane  is a pretty good
indicator that the process was assisted by anaerobic microbes.  Coal is
basically pressed and de-watered peat moss anyway.

As for any alligator oil I think it would be close to nil unless he was
quite chubby. Better to use him for shoes. Even if he didn't decompose
in a few days, the alligator being a lean and mean animal would not have
a whole lot of fat on him.  Too bad.  A better candidate  for mining oil
would be some over weight species.  Fat or actually glycerides can be
turned into oil fairly easily with low energy inputs.  In the USA a
company is now using  turkey offal and sewage as feed stocks. Biodiesel,
soaps along with pure carbon are a few of the end products.  Make you
wonder  what you are washing your hands with huh?

Doug in Japan