Is methane a fossil fuel?

Vincent J. Curtis

16 Nov 22

Titan is the planet Saturn’s largest mood.  One of its unusual features is that it has rivers, lakes, and oceans of liquid methane and ethane.  Yes, that methane, sometimes referred to on earth as natural gas.  How on earth did Titan end up with so much methane?

What this points to is that methane is not a “fossil fuel,” that is, not the end product of the fossilization of ancient fish life.  The methane on Titan could not have been produced by biological action.  In addition, the deepest natural gas wells on earth go deeper than 10,000 m below the surface.  This is deeper than the subduction of plate tectonics could have carried beds of decaying fish bodies.  (Fish are thought to be the origin of crude oil, and trees the origin of coal beds; hence, the term “fossil fuels” to describe carbonaceous energy sources as the end produces of a kind of fossilization.)

The solar system was at least partially formed by products of a previous supernova.  The earth contains an iron core, and has lots of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and silicon.  In addition, it contains plentiful amounts of uranium.  Elements as heavy as iron are produced in the last stages of large, dying stars, whose supernova produces elements as heavy as uranium.  Hence, the earth must be a fragment of an old, giant star’s supernova, as could other bodies in the solar system.

The oceans of methane and ethane on Titan must therefore be the product of this supernova, since methane and ethane couldn’t be produced by biological action on that frozen, lifeless moon of Saturn.  Water, in the form of ice, lies on the surface of Titan, and the moon has a nitrogen atmosphere.

I conclude that methane, ethane, and other small hydrocarbons found at great depth in the earth’s crust are not the products of fossilization, but are the products more or less directly of the supernova that flung off the earth as a tiny fragment.  Some of these fragments of the supernova entered into orbit around the sun and the solar system began.

Natural gas on earth is not a “fossil fuel” because it is not the end product of fossilization.  It is a product directly of the supernova that created the planet earth.

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