This may be a most unnecessary paper-from what does crude oil come and howwas it formed? Many people, inside and outside of the petroleum industry, believe that we have actually enough oil, and that we can easily produce veryimportant products from this extremely valuable raw material. The writerbelieves, however, that the answer to this question concerning the parentmaterial and the formation of oil is of broader interest, because it may bethat from the answer to these problems it would be possible to get answers toother important industrial questions. Therefore, a study in this line seems tobe justified, and the writer will submit some of the results which he hascollected during more than ten years with many very capable collaborators, towhom his thanks may be expressed on this occasion.
Older Theories
There is no doubt that plants were the parent material of coals, but opinion isdivided as to the parent material of crude oil and asphalts. One group ofspecialists believed that they were formed from dead fish. The hydrocarbons ofcrude oil were formed by the splitting off of CO2 from fatty acids formed bythe saponification of the fat (glycerides) of fish. Enormous quantities ofcrude oil are present in many places on the earth, very often in severalnonconnected horizons at the same location. This could hardly be explained bythe so-called" catastrophe theory," which states that fish died throughthe entrance of salt water into fresh water, and vice versa. Furthermore, thistheory cannot explain the presence of aromatic hydrocarbons, which can be foundin nearly all oils, especially in the oil of the Netherlands Indies, which hasmore than 50 per cent of aromatics. Geological and chemical observations bothlead to the belief that the temperature of formation of asphalt, crude oils andcoals, perhaps with a few exceptions, did not exceed 2000 C. Chlorophyll andhaemin derivatives, which decompose above 2000 C., have been found in all thesematerials by Treibs and others.
T.P. 920
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