Gushing oil surprise
The earth’s underground oil reserves are generally thought to result from organic matter (dead plants and animals) accumulated over millions of years. Therefore, one would expect production from oil wells to decline as oil is pumped out.
But instead of declining, seismic analysis and other tests at many oil wells around the world (e.g. Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, Uzbekistan and the Middle East) show that oil reserves are being replenished from some deeper and previously unknown source.
So, some researchers are now saying that crude oil may be a natural non-biological product and therefore ‘not a stepchild of unfathomable time and organic degradation’. They suggest that streams of methane gas rapidly rise from huge concentrations deep in the earth. These form into crude oil at the mantle-crust interface, roughly 6,000 m (20,000 ft) below the earth’s surface.
Researcher Dr Thomas Gold says that oil is a ‘renewable primordial soup continually manufactured by the earth under ultrahot conditions and tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward the surface, it is attacked by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating back to the dinosaurs.’
- American Assoc. of Petroleum Geologists, www.aapg.org/explorer/2002/11nov/abiogenic.cfm, 18 August 2004.
- World Net Daily, www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38645, 27 May 2004.
In the past some have objected that the 1,600 years from creation to the Flood was insufficient time to produce enough biomass (plants, animals) to account for the earth’s oil reserves. Note that there are strong arguments against that objection (see Coal: memorial to the Flood). If it turns out that the oil is of non-biological origin, the ‘not enough time’ argument becomes irrelevant anyway.
Readers’ comments
Comments are automatically closed 14 days after publication.