New data on the possibility of catalytic abiogenic synthesis of hydrocarbons in the earth's crust

The traditional models of the origin of hydrocarbon deposits in the earth's crust suggest the biogenic mechanism of the formation of oil and gas lense s. Nonetheless, a great deal of research on the catalytic synthesis of hydr ocarbons from the gases CO, CO2, and H-2 over bifunctional catalytic system s containing acid-base components of the clay or zeolite type together with oxidized metal particles has been carried out. The comparison of the compo sition of hydrocarbon mixtures that have been artificially prepared under d ifferent conditions over metal-containing catalysts and catalytic metal oxi de systems blended with clays, SiO2, Al2O3, or zeolites with that of the na turally occurring oil-and-gas fields shows that the abiogenic inorganic syn thesis of hydrocarbons can yield variations of hydrocarbon mixtures identic al to the natural ones. The possibility of treating the processes of abioge nic hydrocarbon synthesis from the CO, CO2, and H-2 gas mixture on inorgani c catalysts as a model of macroscopic-scale processes that occurred in the earth's crust during different periods of the geochemical history of the ea rth is investigated.