abiotic theory

I was watching TV and somebody, commenting on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, remarked that oil was created from dinosaurs. Huh? The "accepted" theory is that oil was generated from plants (and animals) under great pressure and heat -- plants like algae and plankton. It is, as they say, a "fossil fuel". It's a biomass, an organic compost pile. It's composed of hydrocarbons ... and they're organic in nature. I always found this difficult to believe. I tried to imagine the distribution of plants (and animals) a jillion years ago and the current distribution of known oil reserves. I tried to imagine the geological history of these regions and the abundance of plant life ... and the temperature and pressure necessary to turn a T-Rex into a barrel of oil. It ain't easy to imagine. Maybe I ain't got much imagination. Years ago I read of another theory: the abiotic origin of oil, championed by Humboldt in the 19th century. It posits the transformation of hydrogen and carbon monoxide (derived from things such as methane) to liquid fuel. The process is initiated at great depths in the Earth's mantle (40-90 miles deep) and the resultant oil percolates to the Earth's crust. The father of modern abiotic theory was a Russian, Kudryavtsev. He noted that oil has never been made in the lab from plant material. Today (I understand), Russia adopts the abiotic theory and uses it to find oil. Maybe that's why it's the largest producer after Saudi-Arabia. (Or maybe it's because it's the largest country in the world, eh?) Recently, abiotic oil has been generated in the laboratory. In fact, abiotic oil has been generated from methane. No biological origin? But what about methane? Does it have a biological origin? Not necessarily, since it's been found on other planets (and moons) in the solar system. (Have they got plant or animal life?) A couple of years ago it was discovered that deep sea hydrothermal vents contained hydrogen-rich fluids. So ... what about Peak Oil? One writer asks: "Just how many dinos and prehistoric ferns does it take to make a barrel of oil?" ------------------------------------- Did I mention that, although the Gulf spill is leaking 5000 barrels / day, there was the Ixtoc spill in the Gulf, in 1979. It leaked over 3 million barrels over a period of about a year. There was also a spill in the Persian Gulf (as a result of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait) which leaked twice that amount, in 1990.