The weight of evidence appears to favor an organic origin, most petroleum coming from plants and perhaps also animals, which were buried and fossilized in sedimentary source rocks. See Levorsen, A.I., Geology of Petroleum, 2nd ed., W.H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco, pp. 3–31, 1967.
The petroleum was then chemically altered into crude oil and gas.
The chemistry of oil provides crucial clues as to its origin. Petroleum is a complex mixture of organic compounds. One such chemical in crude oils is called porphyrin:
Petroleum porphyrins … have been identified in a sufficient number of sediments and crude oils to establish a wide distribution of the geochemical fossils.
~ Tissot, B.P., and Welte, D.H., Petroleum Formation and Occurrence, 2nd ed., Springer-Verlag, Berlin, p. 128, 1984
See this article for more information regarding this line of research.
But there are elements in crude oil that are never found in any plants or animals. They refuse to explain this or even to notice it, even though the facts are readily available.
The weight of evidence appears to favor an organic origin, most petroleum coming from plants and perhaps also animals, which were buried and fossilized in sedimentary source rocks. See Levorsen, A.I., Geology of Petroleum, 2nd ed., W.H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco, pp. 3–31, 1967.
The petroleum was then chemically altered into crude oil and gas.
The chemistry of oil provides crucial clues as to its origin. Petroleum is a complex mixture of organic compounds. One such chemical in crude oils is called porphyrin:
~ Tissot, B.P., and Welte, D.H., Petroleum Formation and Occurrence, 2nd ed., Springer-Verlag, Berlin, p. 128, 1984
See this article for more information regarding this line of research.
But there are elements in crude oil that are never found in any plants or animals. They refuse to explain this or even to notice it, even though the facts are readily available.