In 1877 Russian scientist Dimitri Mendeelev suggested that the large deposits of oil and gas we find under the surface of the Earth could be made without the decay of long-dead organisms in a process called abiotic synthesis of methane. Since then the theory has been relegated to the back shelf due to a lack of evidence and the prevailing conventional wisdom that all deep oil and gas deposits arise from decaying prehistoric animal and plant material.

While it’s no doubt that the decay of dead animals and plants is one pathway to the creation of Earth’s oil and natural gas deposits (potentially the largest), new research done with high-tech equipment simulating the conditions of deep earth suggests that Mendeelev’s theory is correct.

The implications of this discovery are rather profound. Although we don’t know what percentage of fossil fuels are made in an abiotic (without decaying organisms) fashion in the Earth, the researchers’ results clearly indicate that at least some of the oil and gas we mine from the earth is produced constantly without the need for decaying organisms.