many here place their faith in science and what scientists tell us. many simply believe what they say without question and believe that oil is the product of fossils, dead trees etc but have little idea as to how this all happened in the first place. so we are left with the enigma of exactly how is oil formed? and throw in the scare that we are running out.
what is a hydrocarbon? - In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. With relation to chemical terminology, aromatic hydrocarbons or arenes, alkanes, alkenes and alkyne-based compounds composed entirely of carbon or hydrogen are referred to as "pure" hydrocarbons, whereas other hydrocarbons with bonded compounds or impurities of sulphur or nitrogen, are referred to as "impure", and remain somewhat erroneously referred to as hydrocarbons.
Hydrocarbons are referred to as consisting of a "backbone" or "skeleton" composed entirely of carbon and hydrogen and other bonded compounds, and lack a functional group that generally facilitates combustion without adverse effects.
The majority of hydrocarbons found naturally occur in crude oil, where decomposed organic matter provides an abundance of carbon and hydrogen which, when bonded, can catenate to form seemingly limitless chains.[1][2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocarbon http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/topicreview/bp/ 1organic/hydro.html
however - if science is to be believed then how can oil be the remains of dead animals and trees?
below is a list of sites that indicate that oil is not the result of either flora or fauna, as hydrocarbons are thought to exist in massive quantities on titan -
also for the amount of oil and gas that has been discovered so far since the 1800's and considering that it takes massive quantities of organic material to manufacture methane and other potential substitute energy sources then how many animals and forests were required in the first place? this to me seems absurd and abiotic oil seems to better fit the bill.
According to new Cassini data, Saturns largest moon, Titan, has "hundreds" times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the liquid fossil fuel deposits on Earth. This is impressive as Titan's 5150 km diameter is only about 50% larger than Earth's Moon and only a little larger than the planet Mercury. Titan's hydrocarbons cycle into the atmosphere, fall as rain and collect in lakes creating massive lakes and dunes.
Titan is a planet-sized hydrocarbon factory. Instead of water, vast quantities of organic chemicals rain down on the moon's surface, pooling in huge reservoirs of liquid methane and ethane. Solid carbon-based molecules are also present in the dune region around the equator, dwarfing Earth's total coal supplies. Carl Sagan coined the term "tholins" to describe prebiotic chemicals, and the dunes of Titan are expected to be teeming with them. Tholins are essential for the beginning of carbon-based organisms, so these new observations by Cassini will stir massive amounts of excitement for planetary physicists and biologists alike.
The cold -179°C (-290°F) landscape of Titan is currently being mapped by the Cassini probe as it orbits the ringed gas giant, Saturn. Some 20% of the moons surface has been catalogued and so far several hundred hydrocarbon seas and lakes have been discovered. These lakes, individually, have enough methane/ethane energy to fuel the whole of the US for 300 years.
These new findings have been published in the January 29th issue of the Geophysical Research Letters by Ralph Lorenz from the Cassini radar team (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, USA). Lorenz said on reviewing the Cassini data that, "we know that some lakes are more than 10 m or so deep because they appear literally pitch-black to the radar. If they were shallow we'd see the bottom, and we don't." He also steps into the life-beyond-Earth debate by pointing out: "We are carbon-based life, and understanding how far along the chain of complexity towards life that chemistry can go in an environment like Titan will be important in understanding the origins of life throughout the universe."
The ESA Huygens probe separated from Cassini and dropped slowly through the Titan atmosphere in January 2005 analyzing the atmospheric composition and taking some breathtaking images of the surrounding landscape. To complement the huge amount of data assembled from Huygens decent, Cassini will flyby the moon again on February 22nd to take radar data of the Huygens landing site.
