New microbe discovered eating oil spill in Gulf

[mrlynn]

Doc wrote:
[quote=GuyGene]Maybe the earth has been making crude oil since its creation.

Nope.

Crude oil comes from once-living things. Mostly from algae that collected on ancient seabeds no more than 360 million years ago.

It's doubtful that any significant amount of oil predates 500 million years. Even 400 million is probably a stretch.
The hypothesis of abiotic oil has its proponents, esp. Prof. Thomas Gold of Cornell, mentioned above: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin

Oil seeps on the ocean floor are very common, e.g. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...130944.htm

Microbes like the stuff.

/Mr Lynn

[Doc]

mrlynn wrote:
The hypothesis of abiotic oil has its proponents, esp. Prof. Thomas Gold of Cornell, mentioned above...

From the same Wikipedia article:

Although the abiogenic hypothesis was accepted by some geologists in the former Soviet Union, most geologists now consider the abiogenic formation of petroleum scientifically unsupported. Although evidence exists for abiogenic formation of methane and hydrocarbon gases within the Earth, studies indicate they are not produced in commercially significant quantities (i.e. a median abiogenic hydrocarbon content in extracted hydrocarbon gases of 0.02%).

...And Gold was a contrarian. If he believed the scientific community had a consensus on creationism, he'd be an evolutionist out of pure spite.

[Acer]

Dakota wrote:
[quote=haikuman]
New Microbe

Certain radio personality mentioned it months ago to the ridicule of many. PM me to tell you who.
His initials are "R.L." He was crowing about this afternoon. Of course, all he read for the listeners was little more than the headline and press release summary.

Oil-eating microbes is nothing new. They were talking about this when the spill first happened. But when microbes break down oil, they consume oxygen to do it. Vast amounts of bacteria eating cast amounts of oil can lead to oxygen depletion in the water. Oxygen is kind of important, too.

[$tevie]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...k-down-oil
July 31, 2006
Scientists Break Down Oil-Eating Microbe

I think THIS particular microbe may be a new discovery is all.

[Mini 9]

Nature prevails. And oil is natural, too.