On the Nature of Fossil Fuel

The term fossil fuel refers to oil, gas, coal, and oil shale. Recently, more and more often, they consider hydrogen as a fossil. In southern Australia, they even began to issue licenses for the search and exploration of hydrogen accumulations. Currently, the main hypothesis of the origin of fossil fuels is the organic theory, which implies the origin of fossil hydrocarbon fuels as a product of catagenesis (late stage of diagenesis) of organic sediments. However, to date, a huge amount of accumulated evidence indicates the significant possibility inorganic origin of fossil fuels. On the one hand, a concept develop the idea based on the generation of hydrocarbons occurs in the deep layers of the Earth due to inorganic synthesis. On the other hand, more than 40 years ago, a discovery of previously unknown phenomenon of transformation of the organic matter of sedimentary rocks under the influence of tectonic and seismic processes of the earth's crust because of mechanochemical reactions arising under the action of variable mechanical stresses was experimentally established and registered. The theory of different cycles of the carbon cycle on Earth developed in the last two decades, in combination with the above, leads to the conclusion that the planet's hydrocarbon resources are renewable under certain conditions and allow us to consider hydrogen as a fossil fuel.