Do we REALLY know if Dinosaurs ---> Motor Oil?

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I'm just wondering if we really know if oil is the decay product of dinosaurs. Seems to me we've been pumping zillions of barrels of it for over 100 years now and we know that zillions are left (but perhaps not enough zillions for our future consumption needs). Were there THAT many dinosaurs?
 
Google will solve this for you. Don't mean to be harsh, but I used Google to answer this same question years ago.
 
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It was not in general a decay product of dinosaurs, as dinosaurs were around long after most oil was already produced.

It probably was made by anoxic events in oceans that caused a lot of decaying matter to accumulate on sea floors and then get buried. This process is still going on in places like the Black Sea, where the water not far from the surface is totally lacking in free oxygen.

If the world ever got like that on a large scale again, as it was in the Carboniferous era, it would be hot, smelly, and for humans mostly uninhabitable.
 
Originally Posted By: Daryll
I'm just wondering if we really know if oil is the decay product of dinosaurs. Seems to me we've been pumping zillions of barrels of it for over 100 years now and we know that zillions are left (but perhaps not enough zillions for our future consumption needs). Were there THAT many dinosaurs?


No theory I know of ever claimed oil came from dinosaurs, although that was a cute advertizing image for Sinclair oil company. The prevailing theory has always been that oil came from PLANT material: giant fern swamps or algae beds, decaying algae or other plant material dropping to the ocean floor, etc.
 
Quote:
"Crude oil results from physical and chemical processes acting over many million
years on the buried remains of plants and animals. Although crude oil is usually
formed in fine-grained source rocks, it can migrate into more permeable reservoir
rocks and large accumulations of petroleum, the oilfields, are accessed by drilling.
Each oilfield produces a different crude oil which varies in chemical composition
and physical properties." -RJ Prince in R.M. Mortier et al. (eds.), Chemistry and Technology of Lubricants, 3rd edn.,


Crude oil isn't just necessarily dinosaurs, but could be a whole host of ancient animal and plant life - basically any carbon based life form can decompose and eventually form oil deposits. I don't think we have enough grasp on how the oilfields were formed or how many they are to say one way or the other as to what animal/plant species resulted into today's oil fields. And with new fields discovered every year it is hard to think the major shortages of oil predicted are really going to come anytime soon . JMO
 
And the cycle may still be occurring. But there is a little thing called kinetics - the rate of chemical reactions, that makes or breaks it. If the kinetics are slower than our consumption, it is somewhat irrelevant. If they are faster, then great. if they are faster, but the processes are in inreachable locations (think methane hydrate technologies), or too widespread (no concentrated source), then it may also be irrelevant.
 
IIRC one TV science show introduced a theory that oil is created in the layer between the crust and mantle. Then the oil is pushed into cavities in the crust by pressure. Not saying i'm drinking that Kool-Aid but it caught my attention.
 
Its more of a high temperature and high pressure thing down in the earth involving something Hydro like water and other minerals etc. thus the old timers of years past had the correct name for oil. They called it mineral oil. If you think it comes from dead animals. Do this experiment. Put a dead mouse in a grave with a ceramic coated metal pan about a foot under it. And give it a few years then check and see how much oil you recover.
In no case will you ever find oil from decaying animals period.
 
If the earth is only 6-10,000 years old, then oil is being created at a rate faster than any current projections.
 
Originally Posted By: outoforder
If the earth is only 6-10,000 years old, then oil is being created at a rate faster than any current projections.
Your time frame is correct. The oil was created largely by mass burial of organic matter during the worldwide flood of Noah's day.
 
If the moon was made of cheap green cheese, then it could have been dripping down on Earth for ages, explaining why we don't have oil wells at the North and South pole, and the cheese only melts over the equator, where it's hot.

I have no doubt at all that SOME oil is abiotic...simple chemical equilibrium means that under certain conditions, minerals have to form equilibrium compounds, and some simple hydrocarbons are formed.

However, that doesn't mean that ALL, a significant quantity, or a minor quantity is abiotic...and certainly doesn't justify unlimited digging and burning today...

As to the assertion that a petri under a mouse proves something...LOL...we have coal seams spanning hundreds of square kilometers, that were very clearly of vegetable origin...and peat through lignite through bituminous is pretty easily demonstrated (bar the odd bowling ball, silver ring, and clay cup that can't be found anywhere).

But as one highly paid engineer once told me regarding fossil fuels..."there is ample sufficiency to get us to the rapture".
 
Originally Posted By: TallPaul
Originally Posted By: outoforder
If the earth is only 6-10,000 years old, then oil is being created at a rate faster than any current projections.
Your time frame is correct. The oil was created largely by mass burial of organic matter during the worldwide flood of Noah's day.

I thought we were supposed to avoid discussion of religion on BITOG. Have the rules changed?
 
Quote:
?????????

Google. Young Earth creationism.
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Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Originally Posted By: TallPaul
Originally Posted By: outoforder
If the earth is only 6-10,000 years old, then oil is being created at a rate faster than any current projections.
Your time frame is correct. The oil was created largely by mass burial of organic matter during the worldwide flood of Noah's day.

I thought we were supposed to avoid discussion of religion on BITOG. Have the rules changed?
Sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned Noah. The rest is geology.
 
Originally Posted By: TallPaul
Sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned Noah. The rest is geology.

No, it isn't. It's the result of adding up all of the estimated time intervals from stories written in a religious text.

No geologist who begins, proceeds, and ends only with the physical evidence ever concludes in favor of such a young earth. Our planet is billions of years old, not thousands. That is not a small error, and it is not to be made or offered lightly.
 
The earth is either 4 billion years old or it is 6-10,000 years. Don't view it through a religious lense, but rather as a variable in a equation. If you plug in 4 billion years, then you get the mainstream hypothesis about the thousands and millions of years it takes dead animals and plants to become oil. However, plug 10,000 years into the equation and you get interesting results. Perhaps oil is still being created through natural geologic processes and supply isn't quite as finite as we think it is.
 
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