History of The Abiogenic Hypothesis
The abiogenic hypothesis is usually traced to the early part of the 19th century. At the time, the chemical nature of petroleum was not known.
Alexander von Humboldt was the first to propose an inorganic abiogenic hypothesis for petroleum formation after he observed petroleum springs in the Bay of Cumaux (Cumaná) on the northeast coast of Venezuela. In 1804 he is quoted as saying, "petroleum is the product of a distillation from great depth and issues from the primitive rocks beneath which the forces of all volcanic action lie." Abraham Gottlob Werner and the proponents of neptunism in the 18th century believed basaltic sills to be solidified oils or bitumen. While these notions have been proven unfounded, the basic idea that petroleum is associated with magmatism persisted. Other prominent proponents of what would become the abiogenic hypothesis included Mendeleev and Berthelot.
Russian geologist Nikolai Alexandrovitch Kudryavtsev proposed the modern abiotic hypothesis of petroleum in 1951. On the basis of his analysis of the Athabasca Oil Sands in Alberta, Canada, he concluded that no "source rocks" could form the enormous volume of hydrocarbons, and that therefore the most plausible explanation is abiotic deep petroleum. However, humic coals have since been proposed for the source rocks. Kudryavtsev's work was continued by Petr N. Kropotkin, Vladimir B. Porfir'ev, Emmanuil B. Chekaliuk, Vladilen A. Krayushkin, Georgi E. Boyko, Georgi I. Voitov, Grygori N. Dolenko, Iona V. Greenberg, Nikolai S. Beskrovny, and Victor F. Linetsky.
Astronomer Thomas Gold was the most prominent proponent of the abiogenic hypothesis in the West until his death in 2004. More recently, Jack Kenney of Gas Resources Corporation has come to prominence.
Read more about this topic: Abiogenic Petroleum Origin
Famous quotes containing the words history of the, history of, history and/or hypothesis:
“Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“The history of all Magazines shows plainly that those which have attained celebrity were indebted for it to articles similar in natureto Berenice—although, I grant you, far superior in style and execution. I say similar in nature. You ask me in what does this nature consist? In the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque: the fearful coloured into the horrible: the witty exaggerated into the burlesque: the singular wrought out into the strange and mystical.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“On pragmatistic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true.”
—William James (1842–1910)