Enhanced Prognosis for Abiotic Natural Gas and Petroleum

One can make a strong argument for the biological origin of coal. After all, coal occurs in various degrees of hardness ranging from lignite to bituminous to anthracite. Moreover, coal sometimes contains impressions of plants, often ferns, as shown in the example at right. Perhaps, not surprisingly, people have long thought that petroleum formed, as coal did, from buried plants and/or buried animals. But is that true? Or is there perhaps another explanation?

In 1951 Nikolai Kudryavtsev (shown at left) published a different idea, the concept that petroleum was produced deep within the Earth from non-biological materials. Thomas Gold did much to popularize that idea in the West.

The idea of abiotic natural gas and petroleum developed in the shadow of flawed ideas about Earth formation. Generally in science, whenever new advances are made, old ideas should be re-examined in light of those advances.

In the case of the abiotic origin of natural gas and petroleum, that is especially true. The advances made by J. Marvin Herndon, pertaining to the processes operant during the formation of the Solar System, and to the composition and dynamics of planet Earth, all appear to greatly enhance the prognosis for those abiotic resources, as explained in a new scientific communication: