I won't do the research for you that you apparently are not inclined to do yourself, if you don't like my assertion, prove it wrong...the oil that is at the bottom of the ocean and Gulf of Mexico will be dissipated naturally by biological communities that will form around it...as they do around the thousands of natural fissures throughout the world. Again, man thinking he has some major impact on the earth is pure hubris.
This is true scientific fact.
That's why I like to see the sources. Notice they quote a "recent study" that they did not name so we can only take them at there word and it was paid for by the Seaver Institute who's benefactor was Richard Seaver, Oil Drilling Billionaire.
Also since when is an article written by staff without names? "LiveScience Staff"?
Myfist0,
Not accepting the sources, the study or who paid for it doesn't prove BFD's claim wrong.
Take then the study of Geology. What has Geology given us in regard to natural oil seepage from the ocean's floor?
Truth is geologists have located natural oil resevoirs containing billions of barrels of oil under the sea. The oil seepage is from those.
Here is a geologic explanation of how crude oil is formed...
http://electronicsjmbh.blogspot.com/2011/03/formation-process-of-crude-oil.html
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The only argument I have with these 2 links I provided is that they are in lockstep with Evolution worldview which claims that coal, oil and methane formed in the sea over millions of years.
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Oil Forming Under Ocean Now
No sooner had the discovery of ongoing natural formation of petroleum been published in the journal Nature,6 than The Australian Financial Review of February 2, 1982 carried an article by Walter Sullivan of The New York Times under the heading ‘Natural oil refinery found under ocean’. The report indicated that
‘The oil is being formed from the unusually rapid breakdown of organic debris by extraordinarily extensive heat flowing through the sediments, offering scientists a singular opportunity to see how petroleum is formed....Ordinarily oil has been thought to form over millions of years whereas in this instance the process is probably occurring in thousands of years.... The activity is not only manufacturing petroleum at relatively high speed but also, by application of volcanic heat, breaking it down into the constituents of gasoline and other petroleum products as in a refinery.’
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Click image to enlarge.
Figure 1. The Location of the Guaymas Basin in the Gulf of California.
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This ‘natural refinery under the ocean’ is found under the waters of the Gulf of California, in an area known as the Guaymas Basin (see Fig. 1). Through this basin is a series of long deep fractures that link volcanoes of the undersea ridge known as the East Pacific Rise with the San Andreas fault system that runs northwards across California. The basin consists of two rift valleys (flat-bottomed valleys bounded by steep cliffs along fault lines), which are filled with 500 metre thick layers of sediments consisting of diatomaceous ooze (made up of the opal-like ‘shells’ of diatoms, single-celled aquatic plants related to algae) and silty mud washed from the nearby land.
Along these fractures through the sediments in the basin flows boiling hot water at temperatures above 200°C, the result of deep-seated volcanic activity below the basin. These hot waters (hydrothermal fluids) discharging through the sediments on the ocean floor have been investigated by deep sea divers in mini-submarines.
The hydrothermal activity on the ocean floor releases discrete oil globules (up to 1–2 centimetres in diameter), which are discharged into hydrothermal the ocean water with the hydrothermal fluids.7 Disturbance of the surface layers of the sediments on the ocean bottom also releases oil globules.
Correct measurement of the oil flow rate at these sites has so far not been feasible, but the in situ collection of oil globules has shown that the gas/oil ratio is approximately 5:1. Large mounds of volcanic sinter (solids coalesced by heating) form via precipitation around the vents and spread out in a blanket across the ocean floor for a distance of 25 metres. These sinter deposits consist of clays mixed with massive amounts of metal sulphide minerals, together with other hydrothermal minerals such as barite (barium sulphate) and talc.
The remains of unusual tubeworms that frequent the seawaters around these mounds are also mixed in with the sinter deposits. Thus the organic matter content of these sinter deposits in the mounds approaches 24%.8
The hydrothermal oil from the Guaymas Basin is similar to reservoir crude oils.9 Selected hydrocarbon ratios of the vapour phase are similar to those of the gasoline fraction of typical crude oils, while the general distribution pattern of light volatile hydrocarbons resembles that of crude oils (see Table of analyses) . The elemental composition is within the normal ranges of typical crude oils, while contents of some of the significant organic components, and their distribution, are well within the range of normal crude oils. Other key analytical techniques on the oil give results that are compatible with a predominantly bacterial/algal origin of the organic matter that is the source of the oil and gas.10
This oil and gas has probably formed by the action of hydrothermal processes on the organic matter within the diatomaceous ooze layers in the basin. Of crucial significance is the radiocarbon (C14 ) dating of the oil. Samples have yielded ages between 4,200 and 4,900 years, with uncertainties in the range 50?190 years.11 Thus, the time-temperature conversion of the sedimentary organic matter to hydrothermal petroleum has taken place over a very short geological time-scale (less than 5,000 years) and has occurred under relatively mild temperature conditions.
It is significant also that the temperature conditions in these hydrothermal fluids, of up to and exceeding 315 °C, are similar to the ideal temperatures for oil and gas generation in the previously described Australian laboratory experiments.12 Figure 2a illustrates the oil generation system operating in the Guaymas Basin, while Figure 2b shows how this process could be applied in a closed sedimentary basin to the hydrothermal generation of typical oil and gas deposits.
Click image to enlarge. |
References
- Saxby, J. D. and Riley, K. W., 1984. Petroleum generation by laboratory-scaled pyrolysis over six years simulating conditions in a subsiding basin. Nature, vol. 308, pp. 177–179.
- Saxby, J. D., Bennett, A.J.R., Corcoran, J.F., Lambert, D.E. and Riley, K.W., 1986. Petroleum generation: simulation over six years of hydrocarbon formation from torbanite and brown coal in a subsiding basin. Organic Geochemistry, vol. 9(2), pp. 69–81.
- Saxby and Riley, ref. 1, p. 178.
- Saxby et al., ref. 2, p. 80.
- Saxby and Riley, ref. 1, p. 178.
- Simonelt, B.R.T. and Lonsdale, P.F., 1982. hydrothermal petroleum in mineralized mounds at the seabed of Guaymas Basin. Nature, vol. 295, pp. 198–212.
- Didyk, B.M. and Simoneit, B.R.T., 1989, hydrothermal oil of Guaymas Basin and implications for petroleum formation mechanisms. Nature, vol. 342, pp. 65–69.
- Didyk and Simoneit, ref. 7, p. 65.
- Didyk and Simoneit, ref. 7, p. 66.
- Didyk and Simoneit, ref. 7, p. 66.
- Peter, J.M., Kawka, O. E., Scott, S. D. and Simoneit, B.R.T., 1988, Third Chemistry Congress of North America. Toronto, abstract GEOC 036.
- Saxby et al., ref. 1 and ref. 2.
- Didyk and Simoneit, ref. 7, p. 69.
- Didyk and Simoneit, ref. 7, p. 69.
