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Carbon-14 is produced by cosmic ray bombardment of nitrogen in by simple rote learning and repetition of a canon, selected by the the upper atmosphere; it is radioactive, with a half-life of 5,760 learned elders of the religion of "progress". years. The amount of carbon-14 remaining in historical artefacts What we call "crude oil" is a complex mix of compounds of can be used to estimate their age. basically hydrogen and carbon; all other chemical elements pre- The textbooks which deal with the composition of the Earth sent are, in terms of volume, of no real significance. The complex grapple with a most fundamental problem: there is a serious hydrocarbon chains are fragile constructs and are stable only deficit of carbon® involved in the "metabolism" of the Earth. The under conditions resembling those that all life (as we have come carbon which "comes up" is only partially reabsorbed into the to know it) can tolerate. This places a set of physico-chemical owels of the Earth. Part of it gets absorbed into the skeletons of conditions on the presence of hydrocarbons which are the realm organisms as calcium carbonate (limestone, mostly in the form of _ of organic chemistry, the chemistry of carbon compounds. coral reefs; to a lesser amount as debris of exoskeletons, termed One would have thought that hydrocarbons (being man's best lumachelles) and the biomass, which is largely made up of car- friend; after all, they let men drive macho hot-rods and cruise on. Volumetrically there is no balance! around in "blues mobiles") and the other form of carbon, dia- What is even more detrimental to our understanding of the car- monds (being a girl's best friend), would make carbon compounds on cycle is the fact that colossal amounts the best-known anything in existence. of carbon—in the form of methane gas, It came as a big surprise to everyone— CH4—are escaping from the Earth, if not especially organic chemists—when the argely unnoticed then undocumented. "buckyball" (the C¢q molecule; correct Thomas Gold (see endnote 14) describes name, Buckminsterfullerene), a hitherto ow earthquakes are preceded and accom- unknown crystalline form of carbon, was panied by massive outbursts of methane . discovered in 1985 by Rick Smalley (Shell (cause of the fires that are commonly asso- According to the Chemical Company, USA) and Harold ced wi won anal erie | accepted theory of Kio miszonane, seston cause they can sense methane escaping). oil formation, organic Smalley nor Kroto was a mineralogist; both at ToCentigrade above zero, As waters | Matter living im the | ere ricutar relevance inthe present con = densest (most heavy) at +4° C, there is a oceans sinks to the text. zone near every ocean bottom where the bottom and then In 1953, British astronomer/cosmologist methane which escapes the Earth into the oceans (that make up 70 per cent of the Earth's surface) is collected as methane ice.’ The estimated amounts of methane ice are such that, piled up on the area of Austria, they would reach up some 11,600 kilometres (or some two per cent of the distance to the Moon). This does not include the vast amounts of methane ice which are trapped in the permafrost regions of the globe. These vast amounts of carbon do not enter any carbon-balance Fred Hoyle provided a theory ° to explain why the solar process cannot produce some 30 per cent of the known chemical elements (as is indi- cated by spectrographic investigations of the Sun). Cosmic hydrogen clouds (each atom consisting of one proton, neutron and electron) aggregate until, due to gravitational pressures, temper- atures in the interior reach about five million degrees and protons are mov- ing with enough energy to fuse on col- liding and form deuterons. Deuterons (cores of hydrogen-2) in turn combine with protons to form helium-3. This is decays there (under anoxic/euxinic conditions) to form crude oil. estimates (on either side of the equation), so why take them the helium isotope, with three protons and three neutrons in its seriously? core. According to the accepted theory of oil formation, organic mat- Helium-3 does not interact with protons, but laboratory experi- ter living in the oceans sinks to the bottom and then decays there ments have shown that two helium-3 nuclei can fuse and produce (under anoxic/euxinic conditions) to form crude oil. While this helium-4 (the helium isotope with four neutrons in its core), eject- might be happening to some extent in the Black Sea (which to all ing the two surplus protons. The net result of this proton—proton extents and purposes is closed off from the world's oceans by the chain is the conversion of four atoms of hydrogen into one atom of Dardanelles and is the "type region" for euxinic environments), helium; what in effect happens is that neutrons are "captured". The there is no present-day example of this happening anywhere on process of element "building" by way of neutron capture reaches the surface of the Earth. This contradicts the geoscientific princi- iron (atomic number 56), the most stable of all elements, and then ple of "actualism" which says that "the present is the key to the the solar process stops for lack of energy. past". kin to our Sun go through several Th an ages, the last £ ~ According to the _ accepted theory of rN |= ao! Pn oil formation, organic matter living in the oceans sinks to the decays there (under anoxic/euxinic conditions) to form crude oil. core. Helium-3 does not interact with protons, but laboratory experi- ments have shown that two helium-3 nuclei can fuse and produce helium-4 (the helium isotope with four neutrons in its core), eject- ing the two surplus protons. The net result of this proton—proton chain is the conversion of four atoms of hydrogen into one atom of helium; what in effect happens is that neutrons are "captured". The process of element "building" by way of neutron capture reaches iron (atomic number 56), the most stable of all elements, and then the solar process stops for lack of energy. Astral bodies akin to our Sun go through several stages, the last of which is the supernova. This is when a sun runs out of hydro- gen fuel and gravitationally collapses. This implosion yet again raises temperatures and pressures until they transgress a thresh- old" where the accumulated energy leads to explosive release. In this process (during which far greater energies are involved than in the solar process), all the other naturally occurring chemical elements are produced and the cycle of stellar history begins ELEMENT-BUILDING IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM We have had no reason to believe in any other "theory" (we should better say "hypothesis", as a theory requires empirical proof of an hypothesis) other than "consensus logics", which has elevated the paradigm of oil formation to the same ludicrous, all- encompassing status that the evolutionary principle has attained 34 = NEXUS bottom and then www.nexusmagazine.com AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2004