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This may be a dumb question since I'm pretty ignorant of the chemistry and geology involved but if Mars had ancient oceans with micro organisms (a big if still

This may be a dumb question since I'm pretty ignorant of the chemistry and geology involved but if Mars had ancient oceans with micro organisms (a big if still I know), might it have oil deposits? Seems like that would be pretty useful for future colonization efforts.

tzahola 8y ago
You can’t burn oil without atmospheric oxygen.
- deleted 8y ago
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- xrange 8y ago
  Feedstock for plastics and other industrial products. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=34&t=6 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=34&t=6 A similar process used in: https://availabletechnologies.pnnl.gov/technology.asp?id=395 https://availabletechnologies.pnnl.gov/technology.asp?id=395 ...could be used to reform lower value hydrocarbons into higher value ones.
- mattnewport 8y ago
  You can't burn oil without oxygen sure but don't Falcon rockets burn kerosene with liquid oxygen? I believe there are ways to obtain oxygen on Mars despite the shortage of atmosphere. There's also other industrial uses for oil such as plastics. I'm not an expert on any of this though so maybe oil isn't that useful if you don't have reasonably abundant atmospheric oxygen. SpaceX has talked about using methane from Mars to refuel though, it seems plausible to me that other sources of hydrocarbons like oil would be useful to us.
whatshisface 8y ago
Oil forms one to three miles deep (on earth, deeper on mars due to lower gravity leading to lower pressures at a given depth). Sedimentation can reach this order of magnitude on earth[0], so it's reasonable that lipids could have gotten buried that deeply on mars. The trick would be to have a sufficient amount life early enough in Martian history that it would overlap with the planet's period of geological activity. Like xrange said below, this would be interesting to colonists as a source of hydrogen, carbon and water for industry and agriculture. (It used to be life, so we'd dig it up to make it back in to more life.) Now, for anyone who knows more than me about this, I have a question: can methane ice comets get buried during accretion, eventually climb up the molecular mass ladder into heavy hydrocarbons? [0]https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/image/sedthick9.jpg https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/image/sedthick9.jpg

tzahola 8y ago

You can’t burn oil without atmospheric oxygen.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
xrange 8y ago
Feedstock for plastics and other industrial products. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=34&t=6 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=34&t=6 A similar process used in: https://availabletechnologies.pnnl.gov/technology.asp?id=395 https://availabletechnologies.pnnl.gov/technology.asp?id=395 ...could be used to reform lower value hydrocarbons into higher value ones.
mattnewport 8y ago
You can't burn oil without oxygen sure but don't Falcon rockets burn kerosene with liquid oxygen? I believe there are ways to obtain oxygen on Mars despite the shortage of atmosphere. There's also other industrial uses for oil such as plastics. I'm not an expert on any of this though so maybe oil isn't that useful if you don't have reasonably abundant atmospheric oxygen. SpaceX has talked about using methane from Mars to refuel though, it seems plausible to me that other sources of hydrocarbons like oil would be useful to us.

whatshisface 8y ago

Oil forms one to three miles deep (on earth, deeper on mars due to lower gravity leading to lower pressures at a given depth). Sedimentation can reach this order of magnitude on earth[0], so it's reasonable that lipids could have gotten buried that deeply on mars. The trick would be to have a sufficient amount life early enough in Martian history that it would overlap with the planet's period of geological activity. Like xrange said below, this would be interesting to colonists as a source of hydrogen, carbon and water for industry and agriculture. (It used to be life, so we'd dig it up to make it back in to more life.) Now, for anyone who knows more than me about this, I have a question: can methane ice comets get buried during accretion, eventually climb up the molecular mass ladder into heavy hydrocarbons? [0]https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/image/sedthick9.jpg https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/image/sedthick9.jpg