The mystery of where the oil came from

How is oil formed?

Oil is the most widely used energy and the most important chemical raw material in the world today. However, regarding the origin of oil, since 200 years ago, two famous Russian scientists respectively proposed the organic and inorganic causes of oil, scholars have been divided into two distinct university groups, each holding one, and it is still debated, difficult to win.

The first person in the world to attempt to explore the origin of oil was Lomonosov of Russia. As early as 1763, he proposed that the fertile substances in the ground, such as oil shale, bitumen, carbon, oil, and amber, were of plant origin. For oil shale is nothing but the ancient black soil of rotten grass and leaves washed down by the rain from the places of fruit-bearing and from the woods, which sinks like silt at the bottom of the lake... Resins and petroleum, by their lightness and the flammability of the resins, are of the same origin.

In 1876, another famous Russian figure, Mendeleev, the founder of the periodic table of elements, put forward a very different idea: the earth is rich in iron and carbon, in the early formation of the Earth may combine to form a large amount of iron carbide, and later interact with overheating groundwater, resulting in hydrocarbons, and hydrocarbons are similar to oil. The hydrocarbons that have been produced rise up along cracks in the earth's crust and are stored and condensed to form petroleum deposits. The "carbonization theory" was popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but soon fell into disrepute because there was no evidence of large quantities of iron carbide deep in the Earth, and there was no possibility of groundwater deep in the Earth.

During this period, astronomers used spectral analysis to find the presence of hydrocarbons in the atmospheres of some planets in the solar system and in the cores of comets. They clearly have nothing to do with biological action (there is a question here). Russia's Sokolov introduced the "universe theory" of petroleum origin in 1889, arguing that when the Earth was born, it was still in a molten fireball state, and absorbed hydrocarbons in the primitive atmosphere. As the Earth cooled, the hydrocarbons that were absorbed condensed and buried in the Earth's crust to form oil. Opponents point out that the Earth formed an atmosphere of much the same composition as the modern one and could not have contained large quantities of hydrocarbons; Even if it did, the hot, molten Earth would have disintegrated long ago.

People call "carbonization theory" and "universe theory" the theory of inorganic origin. There is also an inorganic origin theory, called "volcano theory". There are not many people who hold the "volcanic theory", they believe that oil is the product of volcanic eruption, but the oil deposits located in the world's volcanic belt are very small after all, and this theory cannot explain the formation of a large number of oil deposits that do not exist in the volcanic belt.

In 1888, Jaffe inherited Lomonosov's theory of organic origin and said "challenge" to inorganic origin. He believed that all oil was formed from the fat of Marine animals through a series of changes. Soon, some people put forward the idea that the plant remains in the lake or the seabed under the influence of temperature and pressure to generate organic matter, and then converted into oil, some of which emphasized the importance of Marine plants, and some said that land plants are more favorable to oil generation.

In the 1930s, the former Soviet scientist Gubkin integrated the two opinions and published the "origin of animal and plant mixture", which believed that the mixture of animals and plants was more conducive to the generation of oil after a series of changes. The latest theory of petroleum organic formation holds that the organisms that form petroleum and natural gas include terrestrial and aquatic organisms, and plankton, which is the most prolific organism, is the main one. Together with sediment and other minerals, they are deposited in low-lying shallow seas, bays or lakes, where they first form organic silt, which is covered by new sediment and creates a reducing environment isolated from the air. As the low-lying areas continue to settle, the sediment continues to thicken, the pressure and temperature of the organic sludge continue to increase, and it gradually transforms into oil and natural gas through biochemical, thermal catalytic, thermal cracking, high temperature and other stages.

In the 1940s and 1950s, it was generally believed that petroleum hydrocarbons were formed by the early diagenetic transformation of dispersed organic matter in sedimentary rocks. Some people found hydrocarbon in modern sediments formed almost at the same time, on this basis, put forward the theory of early oil formation of organic origin, also known as "molecular oil generation theory".

In the 1960s, the "molecular oil generation theory" was replaced by the late oil generation theory. Late oil theory believes that when the sediment is buried to a greater depth, to the late diagenesis, the insoluble organic matter in the rock - anhydride tyrogen, to reach mature pyrolysis and generate oil, so it is also called "anhydride tyrogen oil theory".

However, the school of inorganic origin has not gone away. In 1951, the former Soviet geologist Kudryantsev, who had been an organic genesis theorist for the previous 40 years, made a sudden U-turn and coined the "magma theory."

He was convinced that magma deep within the Earth contained not only carbon and hydrogen, but also oxygen, sulfur, nitrogen, and other trace elements in oil. In the process of magma change from high temperature to low temperature, a series of chemical reactions will occur, thus forming a series of compounds in petroleum. Then, along with the intrusion and eruption of magma, these petroleum compounds migrate and accumulate in favorable parts of the crust to form petroleum deposits.

Cornell University astronomer Gold, since 1977, on the basis of the universe and magma, has repeatedly proposed that oil comes from deep in the Earth and has been produced as early as 4.5 billion years ago when the Earth formed. His argument against the organic theory is that the size of the oil deposits in the world is much larger than that of any other sedimentary ore body, and that the identified oil and gas reserves are hundreds of times higher than previously estimated by the biogenic theory; Most difficult to explain is that many oil and gas are associated with helium, but organisms do not play any role in the concentration of helium; Moreover, biological processes explain the highly concentrated distribution of oil fields in the world (referring to the Middle East). In addition, according to the traditional theory, granite is igneous rock, can not have oil and gas, but Gold predicted that one of Europe's largest meteorite impact crater in central Sweden, the ringed Silyan area, is made of granite, but because of meteorite impact caused by large cracks, enough to allow hydrocarbons deep underground flow to the surface of the crust. To this end, the Swedish National Energy Agency has drilled seven exploration Wells in the crater to a depth of about 500 meters, and all of them have found small amounts of gas that seem to confirm Gold's hypothesis.

However, some people found that when the oil price is high, people can not help but ask: how many years can oil burn? Hundreds of millions of cars around the world, so many planes coming and going. The Boeing 747, a long-range jumbo jet, needs 85 tons of fuel at a time, and the Concorde, which was recently retired from service, needs 96 tons of fuel. Today, charging cars are available, and charging planes still seem unable to fly. The world's daily consumption of crude oil is already staggering, exceeding 70 million barrels in 1996, and OPEC expects it to reach 100 million barrels per day (a barrel is 159 liters or 42 gallons) by 2020.

There's no hurry. According to OPEC estimates, at current production levels, OPEC reserves could be used for 80 years, while non-OPEC reserves could be used for 20 years.

The largest oil producers identified by OPEC:

Saudi Arabia → 261.4 billion barrels (about 29 billion tons)

Iraq → 112 billion barrels (12.4 billion tons)

United Arab Emirates → 97.8 billion barrels (10.8 billion tons)

Kuwait → 96.5 billion barrels (10.7 billion tons)

Iran → 92.6 billion barrels (10.3 billion tons)

This does not include non-OPEC powers such as the United States, Russia and China.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the world's total oil reserves stood at 1,016 billion barrels (132 billion tons) as of January 1, 2000. In the past 150 years of industrial development, human beings have consumed half of the oil, and it is conservatively estimated that the Earth once contained more than 200 billion tons of oil.

Today, scientists generally believe that oil was produced by prehistoric animals decomposing under high temperatures and pressures. But scientists have long wondered how many prehistoric extinctions did it take to produce as much oil as it does today? Did oil arise only from the decay of animals?

We know that human and animal bodies are 70% water and will only rot away on the surface of the earth. According to current theory, only under high temperature and pressure underground can carbohydrates be broken down into hydrocarbons and become oil. The world's population is 7 billion (7×109), assuming that each person weighs an average of 70 kilograms, and adding the livestock raised by humans (excluding the distribution of wild animals), it is not difficult to calculate that about 300 million tons of crude oil can be produced.

7×109×2 (human + livestock) × 70㎏ × 30% = 2.94×108 tons ≒ 3×108 tons

According to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, the world consumes about 2.9 billion tons of crude oil a year. In other words, if all humans and livestock were converted into crude oil, the 300 million tons would only be enough for one and a half months.

Some people say that prehistoric creatures were large and numerous. We assume that prehistoric "huge" animals have large and small, an average of one ton each, still calculated according to 30% of the effective component, to form more than 200 billion tons of oil, there must be nearly 700 billion prehistoric creatures, how can the earth fit? And they all have a living environment. Suppose they lived in the same density as humans do today, 7 billion. It would take 100 mass killings and deep burials to produce more than 200 billion tons of oil. However, it is not difficult for us to find in life that after the death of animals on the surface, the vast majority of them rot into bones, or are eaten into feces, and become oil.

However, archaeological findings do not support such an event. Scientists believe the age of dinosaurs began with an asteroid impact 250 million years ago, and ended with an asteroid impact 65 million years ago. From the Cambrian to the Cretaceous, only six mass extinctions have been identified, and the two most significant of these are surface extinctions caused by asteroid impacts. But we know that on the surface of the earth dinosaurs would just rot away, not produce oil.

Assuming mass extinctions and deep burials, it would require the movement of plates to suddenly bury animals like "kneading dough". The slow movement of the Earth's crust will only cause the body to rot and eventually become fossilized bones, while earthquakes and volcanoes can only cause local disasters. However, current geological findings suggest that the plates are stable after the existence of life, and there are no sudden global movements, but only slow crustal movements. When was there such a force? It's hard to explain at the moment.

From various analyses of the causes of oil, the traditional theory that oil is evolved from the decay of animals has been questioned, and we can not help thinking about the origin of life again.

The above evidence and findings are almost a great impact on his "common sense" that we do not doubt. Since scientific common sense is questionable, how far is the "truth of the universe" that humans have always thought they knew from the real truth of the universe?

In fact, the logical basis of science now belongs to "induction". In other words, through continuous observation, a large number of observations are gathered, and then the establishment of the theory is carried out. Once a theory has been established, it must be proved by more rigorous experiments, and when an unexplainable example is found, the theory is broken, and a new hypothesis must be returned. To become a law is more rigorous, after a long time of research to confirm that the theory does not ask questions, after more careful verification, at this time must be very rigorous in logic, enough to explain most of the relevant cases, in order to become a law. Similarly, if there is a counterexample or a flaw in logic, it must also go back to the stage of doctrine and re-examine it.