Anhydride Theory - A Theory of Petroleum And Coal Generation
Authors: Hunt C.W. 
Published: March 2010

Methane pervades deep mines in crystalline, volcanic, and sedimentary terranes. It appears to effuse ubiquitously from the earth's interior. The author advances the theory that this methane provides hydrogen and energy for hyperthermophyllic bacteria and archaea, thus incidentally generating petroleum and adding carbon in the coalification of peat. Alkane and other hydrocarbon mixtures that make up petroleum from the stripped methane are "anhydrides." The "terminal anhydride," pure carbon, is the additional carbon that changes peat to coal in the coalification process or deposits as asphaltite.

The paper addresses and answers the following question in the negative, "Does coal generate methane?" It concludes, on the contrary, that methane generates coal. It addresses the question of whether petroleum is "abiogenic" or "biogenic" with the conclusion that petroleum is largely a biogenic derivation from abiogenic methane.

Introduction

The idea that higher carbon numbered hydrocarbons might be generated from methane or that carbon might have been added to peat in coalification, have not been generally considered in geology. Let us review the evolution of thinking that has led to the present outlook and the options for redirection of current thinking.

In antiquity the Greeks named the oil they found in rocks petroleum to distinguish it from oil obtained by compressing olives or rendering fish livers or animal fat. To them petroleum was evidently "abiogenic," a seemingly simple observation, and coal was "the stone that burns," also a simple declaration of observed fact.

Nineteenth century theorists, understanding fossils and, knowing one cannot compress or render rock to obtain oil, took biogenesis from fossil biomass to be the most likely origin of petroleum. Their idea of "fossil fuel" was a theory, no more, and it was not accepted by all, in particular, Mendeleev(1), the most capable biochemist of the day.

Plant macerals in coal led coal miners to regard coal as compressed plant material, thus another "fossil fuel." These two simplistic ideas have prevailed to our day despite objections from many prominent scientists. Canadian geologist and engineer, Eugene Coste, was one such scientist. In 1900 he based a successful oil exploration program on his deduction that petroleum was rising through great fractures in the earth under Ontario,(2,3) and in 1903 he published a 56-page paper in which he made the point that natural gas had a volcanic origin. He was roundly opposed and the fossil origin for petroleum left to prevail unopposed until our day.

Changes in thinking started when hydrocarbons were identified in the gaseous envelopes of the outer planets and on the solid surfaces of their satellites. Kerogen in a martian meteorite completed the picture of an abundance of cosmic hydrocarbons. Immediate consensus followed that the very abundance must reflect an abiogenetic origin(4, 5) for cosmic hydrocarbons, another seeming observation of fact. Pointing to the now well known fact that hydrocarbons are present in meteorites and abundant on some satellites of the outer planets, 20th century astrophysicist, Thomas Gold in 1987(6) drew the conclusion that petroleum on earth must also be produced abiogenically.