Dr. Thomas Gold and Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents, Part 2
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Proved Hydrocarbon Chains Emitted by Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents Were Created in the Mantle of the Earth by the Fisher-Tropsch Equations
This substack article is an extract from my book The Truth About Energy, Global Warming, and Climate Change: Exposing Climate Lies in an Age of Disinformation.
In February 2008, ocean scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution published the conclusions of their continued research. Giora Proskurowski of the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington in Seattle was the lead author of the article entitled, “Abiogenic Hydrocarbon Production at Lost City Hydrothermal Field.”[1] Proskurowski reported on research led by the University of Washington and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution that sampled the hydrogen-rich fluids venting at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in the Lost City hydrothermal field. Remarkably, Proskurowski and his team concluded that the hydrogen-rich fluids involved an abiotic synthesis of hydrocarbons generated by seawater chemical reactions with the serpentinite rocks under the Lost City hydrothermal vent field in the Atlantic Ocean. The article rattled the conventional wisdom of petroleum geologists who insisted that all hydrocarbon fuels found in the biosphere had to be organic in origin. Even more impressive, Proskurowski and his team saw the link between the Fischer-Tropsch process and the deep-Earth hydrocarbons exuding from the Lost City hydrothermal chimneys. The article began cautiously introducing the idea that the Lost City chimneys were venting abiogenic hydrocarbons:
Fischer-Tropsch type (FTT) reactions involve the surface-catalyzed reduction of oxidized carbon to CH4 and low-molecular-weight hydrocarbons under conditions of excess H2. This set of reactions has been commonly invoked to explain elevated hydrocarbon concentrations in hydrothermal fluids venting from submarine ultramafic-hosted systems and in springs issuing from ophiolites; however, whether naturally occurring FTT reactions are an important source of hydrocarbons to the biosphere remains unclear.[2]
The oceanographic scientists left no doubt of their conclusion. They had found a source of abiogenic hydrocarbons in the biosphere. They wrote:
Although CH4 and higher hydrocarbons have been synthesized by FTT in the gas phase from CO for more than 100 years, only recently were FTT reactions shown to proceed, albeit with low yields, under aqueous hydrothermal conditions, with dissolved CO2 as the carbon source.[3]
They concluded:
Here, we show that low-molecular-weight hydrocarbons in high-pH vent fluids from the ultramafic-hosted Lost City Hydrothermal Field (LCHF) at 30°N on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) are likely produced abiotically through FTT reactions.[4]
This article in Science was the first scientific publication where legitimate scientists were willing to put their reputations on the line by declaring they had found a biosphere case where the interaction of seawater with rocks originating in the mantle produced abiotic hydrocarbons. “Our findings illustrate that the abiotic synthesis of hydrocarbons in nature may occur in the presence of ultramafic rocks, water, and moderate amounts of heat,” the oceanographic scientists concluded in print.[5]
The scientists published the FTT equations describing how serpentinization creates a reducing chemical environment characterized by high hydrogen concentrations suited to the production of abiotic hydrocarbons. Serpentinization occurs when this percolation of water transforms ultramafic rocks into the crystal structure of the minerals found in the rock. Ultramafic rocks are high in magnesium and silica, such as igneous olivine and peridotite. These rocks are igneous and meta-igneous rocks typically found in Earth’s mantle. In the deep-sea FTT reactions, CO2 was the carbon source used to combine with the hydrogen produced by serpentinization to form the abiotic hydrocarbons. Proskurowski and his team ruled out seawater bicarbonate as the carbon source for the observed FTT reactions, insisting that “a mantle-derived inorganic carbon source is leached from the host rocks.”
Proskurowski and the oceanographic team knew their results would startle traditionally trained petroleum geologists because the hydrocarbons at the Lost City hydrothermal fields were carbon-13 (13C). In both his books, Thomas Gold explained that carbon-13 and carbon-12 (12C) are associated with organic hydrocarbons and abiotic hydrocarbons. But conventional petroleum geologists have always insisted that carbon-12 is the organic isotope of carbon and that all Earth biosphere hydrocarbons are carbon-12. That oil, coal, and natural gas found in Earth’s biosphere are carbon-12 is one of the principal arguments conventional petroleum geologists make to argue oil, coal, and natural gas are all organic in origin.
But when the scientists published in Science that the carbon they found in the Lost City hydrothermal fields was carbon-13, there was no denying that at least one case of deep-Earth abiogenic hydrocarbons existed.
The Lost Sea scientists had found simple C1 to C4 carbon chains coming out of the Lost City’s chimneys. The hydrocarbon gases emitted from the Lost City’s chimneys were mostly single-bond, straight-chain alkanes, i.e., saturated hydrocarbons, with the chemical formula CnH2n+2, and ethene (C2H4), and other hydrocarbons that the Germans had produced during World War II with the Fischer-Tropsch process. Several Lost City samples found acetylene (C2H2), propane (C3H8), and propyne (C3H4) present. The methane (CH4) concentrations were a carbon-13 value characteristic of methane produced from serpentinite-hosted vent fields.
Proskurowski and his team also had to rule out that the methane exuding from the LCHF was created organically by organic bicarbonates on the seabed floor. The scientists used accelerator mass spectrometric measurements to apply carbon-14 dating techniques to six methane (CH4) samples from the LCHF. They wanted to determine if the methane contained any living material, like organic bicarbonates, that could have formed the methane organically. The scientists applied carbon-14 testing to the methane not to date the methane but to see if the methane contained any organic material. Carbon-14 is present in all living and recently expiring things. The half-life of carbon-14 is 5,700 years, meaning every 5,700 years, the amount of carbon-14 in a fossil is only half what it was when the organism died. But if a carbon-14 sample is not radioactive, the carbon is not organic, i.e., not from living things.[6] Thus, the finding that the methane samples contained no radioactive carbon-14 led to the conclusion that whatever produced the methane was not organic. The scientists got carbon-14 (14C) readings from all six methane samples. But the 14C was radioactively dead.
The analysis proved that the carbon source of the methane could not be organic seawater bicarbonate (14C-seawaterDIC) that had been microbially or abiogenically reduced in the formation of the methane. The absence of organic seawater bicarbonate in the methane samples also suggested to the scientists that organic bicarbonate on the seabed floor had been removed before the production of the hydrocarbons in the vent fluids.
The scientists reasoned that precipitation as calcium carbonate (CaCO3) removed the seawater bicarbonate from the seabed floor. After ruling out all possibilities that the methane was organic, the scientists concluded that the serpentinizing basement rock was the source of the carbon in the methane, reasoning that increasing pH leads to carbonate precipitation within the serpentinites. The scientists summarized their findings, saying the “14C content of short-chain hydrocarbons suggests that the requisite carbon for abiotic synthesis is derived by leaching of primordial radiocarbon-dead carbon from mantle host rocks.”
Moreover, there was no sediment source rich in organic matter in the Lost City environment. The absence of sea-bottom rich in organic matter alone strongly suggested the methane was abiotic. Thus, the scientists went to great lengths ruling out all possibilities that the methane and other hydrocarbons in the LCHF vents were organic. They took pains to reinforce their conclusion that a thermogenic source had produced the Lost City hydrocarbons. A thermogenic source for the CH4 would have meant the heat-generating metabolic processes of the deep-sea life forms feeding on the Lost City hydrothermal chimneys had formed the methane. The scientists finally concluded that the high carbon-13 content of the methane from the LCHF vents, as well as the lack of a sediment source rich in organic matter in the path creating the methane, meant the CH4 was “not appreciably derived from a thermogenic source.”
The oceanographic scientists ended their article by stressing that the marine organisms fed on the abiotic hydrocarbons in the Lost City hydrothermal fields. “Lost City may be just one of the many, as yet undiscovered, off-axis hydrothermal systems. Hydrocarbon production by FTT could be a common means for producing precursors of life-essential building blocks in ocean-floor environments or wherever warm ultramafic rocks are in contact with water.”
In September 2007, German scientists joined the LCHF team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to publish in Nature.[7] The article showed that marine anaerobic bacteria thrived in consuming short-chain hydrocarbons, including ethane (C2H4), propane (C3H8), and butane (C4H10), in a marine environment that lacked sunlight and oxygen. Anaerobic bacteria, by nature, do not live or grow when oxygen is present. In humans, anaerobic bacteria are most common in the gastrointestinal tract.[8] The short-chain hydrocarbons ethane, propane, and butane are all constituents of natural gas. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution biologist Stefan Sievert, a coauthor of the study, explained that seafloor bacteria could “eat” natural gases like ethane, propane, and butane in a previously unknown way, namely, without oxygen. The bacteria use sulfate instead of oxygen to metabolize natural gases into energy and organic matter. Sievert further explained these marine anaerobic bacteria may have played a role in the evolution of life on early Earth when oxygen was sparse in the oceans and the seafloor hydrothermal vents were spewing hydrocarbons much more common than today. He further detailed these microbes have yet-unknown enzymes that can break down hydrocarbons without heat and oxygen, offering potentially useful catalysts to synthesize compounds.[9]
In 2021, a group of Woods Hole scientists published a study of the Gorda Ridge in the northeast Pacific Ocean off the coast of southern Oregon.[10][MOU1] [MOU2] This study reported that the consumption of microorganisms that feed off hydrocarbons exuded by hydrothermal vents is essential for Earth’s carbon cycles. The scientists found that eukaryotes (or protists) feed off the marine microorganisms, thereby forming a vital link for the food web where carbon transfers to higher tropic levels. The tropic level is the position an organism holds in the food chain. Protists are primarily single-cell microorganisms. Eukaryotes are highly organized protists with a nucleus and specialized cellular machinery called organelles. Algae and amoebas are protists. “The simplest definition is that protists are all the eukaryotic organisms that are not animals, plants, or fungi,” explains Alastair Simpson, a professor in the biology department at Dalhousie University.[11] In the paper, the Woods Hole scientists concluded their findings provided the “first estimate of protistan grazing pressure within hydrothermal vent food webs, highlighting the important role that diverse deep-sea protistan communities play in deep-sea carbon cycling.”[12]
In his book The Deep Hot Biosphere, Thomas Gold noted that mantle-generated methane surging to Earth’s surface through deep-sea hydrothermal vents ultimately rose to the surface if not consumed by marine microorganisms. “Any methane that reaches the atmosphere without being oxidized along the way would quickly be oxidized to carbon dioxide in the oxygen-rich atmosphere and there join the pool of atmospheric-oceanic CO2,” he wrote. “What fraction of all the upwelling carbon volatiles would be delivered to the atmosphere as methane, and what fraction as carbon dioxide?”[13] he asked. He pointed out that carbon dioxide coming from volcanoes is well studied. But the large quantities of methane that emerges from abiotic hydrothermal vents in the deep sea go largely unnoticed.
Gold’s point is essential. How much of the CO2 in the atmosphere is abiotic, rising from deep-sea hydrothermal vents that have nothing to do with human beings burning hydrocarbon fuels? If hydrocarbons played a seminal role in creating life on Earth, how could hydrocarbons be organic in origin? The findings of marine microorganisms feeding on the ocean hydrothermal hydrocarbons validated Gold’s assumption that life on Earth began with deep-sea microorganisms and was dependent on deep-Earth hydrocarbons as a source of food. Thus, the sequence of life on Earth, the carbon cycle, and the food cycle begin within Earth’s mantle.
Gold had an additional deduction essential to this discussion. The exponential growth rates of microbes (and all other forms of life on Earth) require the energy source that supports the life form must arrive in “a metered flow.” The energy that sustains life “must be available, but it must not be available all at once.” Thus, the flow of life-supporting energy, e.g., the flow of hydrocarbons out of the deep-sea hydrothermal vents, must be metered.[14]
If the flow of life-supporting energy stops, the life supported by that energy stops. The inevitable conclusion is that the mantle of Earth continues to make abiotic hydrocarbons on an ongoing basis to continue the life-supporting energy flow at the bottom of the oceans. If Earth’s mantle constantly manufactures abiotic hydrocarbons, then abiotic oil, gas, and coal are much more abundant than the organic theory would presuppose. As noted earlier, the IPCC and other fossil fuel believers, presuming dead organic life produces hydrocarbons, must conclude there is a finite amount of organic life in our history. Hence, the amount of oil, coal, and natural gas on Earth must also be limited. If deep-Earth manufactures hydrocarbons continuously, the continuous formation of oil, coal, and natural gas is an ongoing essential part of Earth’s carbon cycle, not only in geologic time but also today.
[1] Giora Proskurowski, Marvin D. Lilley, Jeffery S. Seewald, Gretchen L. Früh-Green, Eric J. Olson, John E. Lupton, Sean P. Sylva, and Deborah S. Kelley, “Abiogenic Hydrocarbon Production at Lost City Hydrothermal Field,” Science Volume 319, Number 5863 (February 1, 2008), pp. 604-607, https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.1151194.
[2] Ibid., p. 604.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., Abstract.
[6] “Understanding Carbon-14 Analysis,” Beta Analytic Testing Laboratory, no date, BetaLabServices.com, https://www.betalabservices.com/biobased/carbon14-dating.html.
[7] Olaf Kniemeyer, Florin Musat, Stefan M. Sievert, et al., “Anaerobic oxidation of short-chain hydrocarbons by marine sulfate-reducing bacteria,” Nature, Volume 449, Number 18 (October 18, 2007), pp. 898-90, https://www.nature.com/articles/nature06200.
[8] “Anaerobic bacteria,” MedicinePlus, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institute of Health (NIH), MedLinePlus.gov, no date, https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003439.htm.
[9] Lonny Lippsett, “Some Things New Under the Sea...and other recent findings by WHOI deep-ocean researchers,” Oceanus, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, February 22, 2008, https://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/some-things-new-under-the-sea/.
[10] Sarah K. Hu, Erica L. Herrera, Amy R. Smith, et al., “Protistan grazing impacts microbial communities and carbon cycling at deep-sea hydrothermal vents,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Volume 118, Number 29 (July 20, 2021), https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.08.430233v1.abstract.
[11] Aparna Vidyasagar, “What Are Protists?” LiveScience.com, March 30, 2016, https://www.livescience.com/54242-protists.html.
[12] Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, “Microbial Predators at Hydrothermal Vents Play Important Role in Deep-Sea Carbon Cycling,” SciTechDaily.com, July 20, 2021, https://scitechdaily.com/microbial-predators-at-hydrothermal-vents-play-important-role-in-deep-sea-carbon-cycling/amp/.
[13] Thomas Gold, The Deep Hot Biosphere, p. 64.
[14] Ibid., pp. 6-7.
[MOU1]The link to this said, “Access Denied. You are not authorized to access this page.” Can someone with access verify that the citation information is correct? Or you can use a different source altogether, that hopefully all your readers could access. I found a working link. Changed the footnote below.
[MOU2]Working link placed in the footnote now