This page exists so that nobody has to take the rest of the article on trust. Every source it rests on is listed here with what it actually says, how it was obtained, and which way it cuts.
The article's working notes, with verbatim quotations, access routes and page anchors for every entry, are in research/origin-and-kinetics.md, research/time-arguments.md and research/yec-literature.md. The Arrhenius arithmetic is in research/arrhenius.ts. This page is the index to them.
How to read an entry
Direction is judged relative to the young-earth claim that the world's oil and gas formed from organisms buried in the one-year Flood and that reservoirs are only thousands of years old: supports, undercuts, mixed or background, by what the source shows rather than who wrote it. Camp is disclosure. Type distinguishes measurement from model from review. Access says how the bytes were obtained; several books and journal issues were read through archive.org's search-inside route on print-disabled items and are not stored.
Rows not cited in the article were read and considered; where a row's source is not footnoted in index.md, it was judged background or duplicative and not used, and it is listed here so that the omission is visible.
Kinetics and the oil window
| Source | Type | Camp | Access | Direction | What it says |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tissot & Welte 1984, Petroleum Formation and Occurrence | textbook | mainstream | archive.org print-disabled search; leaf map anchored | undercuts | Oil window by reflectance (p. 517); thresholds 60–115 °C (p. 179); threshold falls with source-rock age (p. 223); Ea mode 50 kcal/mol for type II (p. 592); time-to-window 5 to 300 Myr (pp. 225, 600, 653). |
| Waples & Yang 2023, Adv. Geo-Energy Res. 7:1 | model | mainstream | CC BY-NC-ND | background | The EASY%Ro frequency factor is 10¹³ s⁻¹. |
| Henry & Lewan 2001, USGS DDS-67 ch. D | tabulation | mainstream | public domain | background | Behar 1997 and Pepper & Corvi 1995 gas kinetics, used as an independent check. |
Own calculation (research/arrhenius.ts) |
model | — | — | undercuts | 315 °C for 3 days, 256 °C for 1 yr, 176 °C for 4,500 yr, 122 °C for 10 Myr at 50% conversion. |
| Waples 1980, AAPG Bull. 64:916 | model | mainstream | archive.org AAPG microfilm | background | TTI calibration (p. 921): onset 15, peak 75, end 160; a 4,500-yr hold needs 220–230 °C to reach TTI 15. |
| Sweeney & Burnham 1990, AAPG Bull. 74:1559 | model | mainstream | archive.org AAPG microfilm via iapdsearch |
undercuts | Table 1 (p. 1561) obtained and cross-checked; rerun gives the 4,500-yr oil window at 147–218 °C, the 10-Myr window at 96–158 °C; "the dependence on heating time is weak." |
Own calculation (research/easyro-isothermal.ts) |
model | — | — | undercuts | The EASY%Ro distribution run isothermally; the Flood-to-geology gap is 50–60 °C at any maturity. |
Rapid generation, laboratory and natural
| Source | Type | Camp | Access | Direction | What it says |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lewan, Winters & McDonald 1979, Science 203:897 | measurement | mainstream | abstract only | supports (rapid at heat) | Crude-like pyrolysates by hydrous pyrolysis. |
| Lewan 1985, Phil. Trans. A 315:123 | measurement | mainstream | abstract only | supports; states the purpose is kinetics | Oil expelled below 374 °C, no olefins; a means to obtain kinetics for the natural system. |
| Lewan & Henry 1999, USGS OFR 99-327 | measurement | mainstream | public domain | supports (rapid at heat) | 72 h at 160–365 °C; no oil below 270 °C; coal to 1.55% Ro at 355 °C. |
| Brooks & Smith 1969, GCA 33:1183 | measurement | mainstream | archive.org microfilm search-inside (not stored) | mixed | Brown coals with water in sealed tubes, 210–330 °C, several days: bituminous rank, n-alkanes, gas. Purpose stated as accelerating reactions that run "during millions of years"; basin temperatures ~100 °C at 8,000 ft. |
| Saxby & Riley 1984, Nature 308:177 | measurement | mainstream | abstract only | supports (rapid at heat) | 1 °C/week from 100 to 400 °C over six years; crude after four years. |
| Elliott et al. 2013, Algal Research 2:445 | measurement | mainstream | abstract only (verified bytes) | supports (rapid at heat) | Continuous-flow HTL of wet algae at 350 °C, 20 MPa, sub-critical water. |
| Jones et al. 2014, PNNL-23227 | report | mainstream | open PDF | background | Design report for the Elliott campaign: ~3,000 psia, equivalent residence 15–27 min; yields 38–63 wt% AFDW. |
| Simoneit & Lonsdale 1982, Nature 295:198 | measurement | mainstream | abstract only | supports; "pyrolytic temperatures" | Guaymas hydrothermal petroleum with olefins and PAHs. |
| Didyk & Simoneit 1989, Nature 342:65 | measurement + estimate | mainstream | archive.org Nature microfilm | supports, then bounds it | Crude-like oil; "less than 5,000 years"; generation potential ~40 × 10⁶ t of organic matter over ~30 km², efficiency unknown, oil dispersed (p. 68). |
| Peter et al. 1991, Geology 19:253 | measurement | mainstream | archive.org Geology microfilm | supports, with the authors' caveats | Petroleum ¹⁴C 4,240 ± 185, 4,875 ± 190, 5,705 ± 300 BP, "may be as much as ~500-3000 yr younger"; 150–200 °C within 20–30 cm of the sea floor; "the age of the carbon." |
| Simoneit, Deamer & Kompanichenko 2009, Appl. Geochem. 24:303 | measurement | mainstream | abstract only | supports | Uzon oil 1,030 ± 40 BP, biogenic biomarkers. |
| Simoneit, Oros & Leif 2019, Rev. Mex. Cienc. Geol. 36:159 | measurement | mainstream | CC BY | mixed | Youngest hydrothermal petroleum; severely biodegraded after ~3,000 yr exposure. |
| Thomas 2014, ICR "One-Hour Oil Production?" | popular | creationist | open web | supports (rapid at heat) | PNNL algae to crude in an hour at 350 °C. |
Biological versus abiotic origin
| Source | Type | Camp | Access | Direction | What it says |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Peters & Moldowan 1993, The Biomarker Guide | textbook | mainstream | archive.org print-disabled search | background | Treibs 1936: porphyrins from chlorophyll. |
| Gold 1992, PNAS 89:6045 | hypothesis | mainstream (abiotic) | open access | background; concedes biomarkers | Hopanoids in every sample examined; 10¹³–10¹⁴ tons. |
| Kenney et al. 2002, PNAS 99:10976 | model + measurement | abiotic school | arXiv preprint | background | Alkanes above methane only above 30 kbar, at 1,500 °C. |
| Kolesnikov, Kutcherov & Goncharov 2009, Nat. Geosci. 2:566 | measurement | abiotic school | course copy (excerpt) | background | C₂–C₄ from methane above 2 GPa; opens by conceding biological origin. |
| Sherwood Lollar et al. 2002, Nature 416:522 | measurement | mainstream | abstract only | undercuts abiotic | Reversed isotope series absent from economic reservoirs. |
| Glasby 2006, Resource Geology 56:85 | review | mainstream | course copy | undercuts abiotic | Gold's theory "invalid"; mantle too oxidising. |
| Etiope & Sherwood Lollar 2013, Rev. Geophys. 51:276 | review | mainstream | Wiley file route | undercuts abiotic | Abiotic CH₄ "far less than 1%" of gas fields; Schoell's CD diagram. |
| Matthews 2008, ARJ 1:145 | model | creationist | open web | shows the split | "Theobaric" oil, created before the Flood. |
| Silvestru 2010, CMI | popular | creationist | open web | shows the split | Abiotic theory "may be the case." |
| Wile 2013, blog | commentary | creationist | open web | shows the split | The two experiments "don't claim to have made oil." |
The creationist literature on oil origin
| Source | Type | Camp | Access | Direction | What it says |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Snelling 1982, Creation 5(2):43 | popular | creationist | open web | supports | Bass Strait oil "recent"; "2–5 days" from Brooks & Smith 1969, whose 210–330 °C the article omits; "duplicate rapid burial" is Snelling's framing, inverted from the paper's purpose statement. |
| Snelling 1990, Creation 12(2):30 | popular | creationist | open web | supports; accurate | CSIRO experiments and Guaymas reported fairly; "fountains of the deep" as hydrothermal systems. |
| Snelling 2007, Answers 2(1):74 | popular | creationist | open web | supports; internally inconsistent | Porphyrins in 12 hours (from a synthesis handbook); porphyrins destroyed at 210 °C in days. |
| Clarey 2014, ICR | popular | creationist | open web | supports | Natural generation "in as few as 100 years after the Flood." |
| Mackay in Budinsky 2021 (video) | interview | creationist | captions on disk | supports; unsupported | Clay catalysis with no heat, after conceding 350–400 °C. |
| Snelling 2009, Earth's Catastrophic Past vol. 2, p. 758 | book | creationist | on disk | undercuts "all oil" | "More than 85 percent" of source rocks are Flood on a K-Pg boundary. |
| Snelling 2009, Earth's Catastrophic Past vol. 2, ch. 121, pp. 965–976 | book | creationist | on disk | supports; self-contradictory | Exploration needs no history (p. 965) yet vitrinite reflectance is an exploration guide (p. 973); "no oil in the Pleistocene" (p. 967); Precambrian commercial oil conceded (p. 967); porphyrins "break down" at 210 °C (pp. 970–971, uncited); mechanism is "nearby volcanic sources" (p. 975). |
| McQueen 1986, ICR Impact "The chemistry of oil" | popular | creationist | open web | undercuts the porphyrin argument at its source | The 210 °C / 12 h figures are DiNello & Chang's preparative synthesis of pyrroporphyrin from chlorophyll extract, inverted by later authors into destruction. |
| DiNello & Chang 1978, in Dolphin (ed.) The Porphyrins vol. I, p. 328 | laboratory procedure | mainstream | archive.org print-disabled search | undercuts creationist use | Parr bomb at 210 °C for 8–12 h in methanolic KOH over silver; 0.5 g pyrroporphyrin from 100 g extract; a recipe, not a rate. |
| Falkowski et al. 2000, Science 290:291, Table 1 | review | mainstream | archive.org Science scan | undercuts | Kerogens 15,000,000 GtC; fossil fuels 4,130 (coal 3,510, oil 230, gas 140). Berner 2003 carries burial rates, not an inventory. |
| Bruce 2021, e-Origins 3:7 | kinetic model | creationist | open PDF | mixed; concedes 200 °C for 1,000 yr | The only creationist paper using a published kinetic model; hydrothermal heating proposed without measurement. |
| Dickens 2023, JoC 37(3):18; Dickens 2025, Earth Sciences 14(3):105 | note; stage model | creationist | open PDFs | mixed | Reuses Bruce's figure; adopts petroleum-systems vocabulary without the burial history; 2025 paper has no generation mechanism. |
| Clarey 2013, ICR "Oil, fracking, and a recent global Flood"; Thomas 2011, ICR on natural gas | popular | creationist | open web | supports; degraded claims | Biodegradation at the surface read as reservoir age; Miocene strata called "Ice Age deposits." |
| Wieland 2010, Creation 32(2):56 with 2023 addendum; Sarfati & Catchpoole 2010 | popular | creationist | open web | shows the split, and the walk-back | Abiotic oil "neutralizes the challenge" (2010); "a minority of the oil" (2023); Gold "intriguing." |
| Hunt 1979, on Dow 1977b (about p. 334) | compilation | mainstream | archive.org print-disabled search; page ±2 | undercuts | Same basin, same gradient: oil onset at 164 °C (Pliocene), 113 °C (Oligocene), 84 °C (Cretaceous). |
| Price, Pawlewicz & Daws 1999, USGS Bull. 2174-A | measurement | mainstream | public domain | background | California's youngest source rocks are Miocene, with Pliocene–Recent trapping. |
| Morton 2002, 2003, 2008 (petroleum essays) | review | former creationist | Wayback / mirror | background | Relict oil fields, residual oil rims, capillary seals; a point-by-point reply to Matthews 2008 with no creationist response. |
The overpressure argument
| Source | Type | Camp | Access | Direction | What it says |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whitcomb & Morris 1961, The Genesis Flood, pp. 429–438 | book | creationist | archive.org print-disabled search; pages ±1 | background | Rapid formation and "no oil since the Pliocene"; the overpressure argument is not here. |
| Cook 1966, Prehistory and Earth Models, ch. XII | book | creationist | archive.org print-disabled search; pages ±4; exponents inferred | supports (the argument's root) | Hubbert & Rubey's 10⁻⁸ md against 10⁻⁵ md cores; "sudden deep burial." |
| Morris 1974, Scientific Creationism | book | creationist | archive.org print-disabled search, two copies | — | Does not carry the argument; oil only at pp. 109–110. |
| Morris & Parker 1982, What is Creation Science?, p. 284 | book | creationist | archive.org print-disabled search | supports (one line) | "Sustained for a few thousand years", paraphrasing Stansfield 1977. |
| Morris J.D. 1994, The Young Earth | book | creationist | archive.org print-disabled search | — | Does not carry the argument. |
| Batten (ed.) 2009, CMI "101 evidences" | list | creationist | open web | supports (the live form) | The pressure claim with no number; Guaymas cited as oil "forming today." |
| AiG "Arguments to avoid"; CMI "Arguments ... should NOT use" | lists | creationist | open web | background | Neither mentions oil or reservoir pressure. |
| Fertl 1976, Abnormal Formation Pressures | monograph | mainstream | archive.org print-disabled search; anchored at five points | undercuts creationist use of Dickey | Dickey 1968 read as faults sealing "for long periods of time"; undercompaction from rapid sedimentation. |
| Dickey, Shriram & Paine 1968, Science 160:609 | measurement | mainstream | archive.org Science microfilm | undercuts creationist use | Pore water has moved across shale "hardly at all ... during scores of millions of years"; faults are "seals rather than channels" (p. 612). |
| Neuzil 1995, Am. J. Sci. 295:742 | model + compilation | mainstream | open scan, OCR'd | mixed; the crux | Shale 10⁻²³–10⁻¹⁷ m²; static dissipation ~10⁵ yr; most pressures older, so "ongoing forcing"; Gulf Coast 5 m/kyr. |
| Deming 1994, AAPG Bull. 78:1005 | model | mainstream | abstract only | mixed; concession | Static 1-Myr seal needs 10⁻²¹–10⁻²³ m², "lower than most measurements." |
| Osborne & Swarbrick 1997, AAPG Bull. 81:1023 | review | mainstream | abstract only | background | Disequilibrium compaction and stress are demonstrated; gas generation "unproven." |
| Own calculation (dissipation) | model | — | — | undercuts | Cook's 10⁻²⁰ m² over 500 m gives ~10⁶ yr, not thousands. |
| Isaak, talkorigins CD230–CD232; Matson 1994 | sceptic summaries | counter-apologetics | open web | background | Qualitative; not relied on. |
Dating the oil, Precambrian oil, exploration
| Source | Type | Camp | Access | Direction | What it says |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Selby & Creaser 2005, Science 308:1293 | measurement | mainstream | archive.org Science scan | undercuts, with the scatter printed | 116 ± 27 Ma (n = 24, MSWD 21); 111.6 ± 5.3 from a 17-sample subset; isochron assumptions stated; initial Os ratio excludes a Cretaceous source. |
| Finlay, Selby & Osborne 2011, Geology 39:475 | measurement | mainstream | abstract only | undercuts | 68 ± 13 Ma agreeing with Ar-Ar and basin models. |
| Ge et al. 2018, AAPG Bull. 102 | measurement | mainstream | Durham accepted manuscript | undercuts; scatter printed | 184 ± 23 Ma (six samples); 239 ± 150 (all eleven, MSWD 398). |
| Head, Gray & Larter 2014, Front. Microbiol. 5:566 | review | mainstream | open access | undercuts (model-based) | Biodegradation fluxes 10⁻⁴ to 10⁻⁶ kg/m²/yr; "many millions of years." |
| Head, Jones & Larter 2003, Nature 426:344; Larter et al. 2003 | model | mainstream | abstracts only | background | The primary rate papers, quoted through Head 2014. |
| Grosjean et al. 2009, Org. Geochem. 40:87 | measurement | mainstream | author copy | undercuts | Oman Huqf oils, "the world's oldest known commercial deposits", Ediacaran-sourced. |
| Jackson et al. 1986, Nature 322:727 | measurement | mainstream | abstract only | undercuts | Live oil in 1.4 Ga McArthur Basin rocks, prokaryote-sourced. |
| Ulmishek & Klemme 1990, USGS Bull. 1931 | compilation | mainstream | public domain | undercuts | Six intervals, 91.5% of reserves; Oligocene–Miocene 12.5%. |
| Hunt 1979, Petroleum Geochemistry and Geology | textbook | mainstream | archive.org print-disabled search | undercuts | 10,700 × 10¹⁸ g organic carbon; 11,000:1; 0.01% efficiency. |
| Al-Hajeri et al. 2009, Oilfield Review 21(2):14 | industry review | mainstream | Schlumberger PDF | undercuts Snelling's claim | Seismic "does not reliably predict trap content"; models need heat flow "throughout geologic time." |
| Magoon & Schmoker 2000, USGS DDS-60 ch. PS | review | mainstream | public domain | undercuts Snelling's claim | The events chart and critical moment; "burial modeling and kinetics." |
| Snelling 2025, AiG "Responding to BioLogos' Tactics on Their Opposition to Young-Earth Flood Geology" (18 June 2025) | popular | creationist | open web | supports (half right) | Finding oil has "nothing to do with" an old earth. |
| Morton 2000, "Why I left Young-Earth Creationism" | testimony | former creationist | Wayback | background (anecdote) | The poll of ICR-trained industry geologists. |
| Holland, Leedy & Lammlein 1990; Losh et al. 2002 | measurement | mainstream | open reprint; abstract | background | Eugene Island 330: Pleistocene reservoirs, older deeper source, recent filling along faults. |
| Katz 2011, Open Geol. J. 5:75; IPCC 2006 vol. 5 ch. 3 | review; default factors | mainstream | open | background | Microbial gas >20% of the resource base; landfill half-lives 3–35 yr. |
Considered and not used
- The Changing World Technologies "turkey guts to oil" plant (Snelling 2007's sidebar). No peer-reviewed source found; not pursued.
- The "~1 Myr per biodegradation level" figure sometimes attributed to Larter et al. 2003. Not printed; the phrase was not found in the open review and the primary was not obtained.
- Waples 1980's TTI calibration and Falkowski 2000's Table 1 were obtained late and are catalogued above; the article's kinetics use EASY%Ro and its carbon inventory uses Hunt 1979, so neither is footnoted.
- Clarey's "Whopper Sand" series (ICR 2015–2026), Snelling 2015 (ARJ 8:93, the ¹⁸⁷Re decay constant) and Berner 2003 (Nature 426:323) were read for the petroleum literature audit; the first says nothing about oil origin or age, the second contains no discussion of oil, and the third carries burial rates rather than an inventory. None is cited.
- Radiocarbon in crude oil and natural gas. Handed off to the radiocarbon article; no new measurement pursued.
- The LiveScience fungus item in Eric's notes. A biofuel story; no creationist article uses it.
Sought and not obtained
- Pepper & Corvi 1995 oil parameters; Whiticar 1999; Schoell 1980, 1988.
- Full texts of Lewan 1979 and 1985; Simoneit & Lonsdale 1982.
- Elliott et al. 2013 body (abstract verified from publisher bytes; the open PNNL-23227 design report covers the run conditions).
- (Obtained late through archive.org's journal microfilm scans, located by the archive's full-text API: Brooks & Smith 1969 (210–330 °C, several days, sealed tubes with water; purpose was to accelerate reactions that run "during millions of years" in nature); Dickey 1968; DiNello & Chang 1978; Sweeney & Burnham 1990 Table 1; Waples 1980; Peter 1991; Didyk & Simoneit 1989; Selby & Creaser 2005; Falkowski 2000; Berner 2003.)
- Hunt 1996 (2nd ed.); Peters, Walters & Moldowan 2005 (2nd ed.); Treibs 1934, 1936.
- Neuzil 1994, WRR 30:145; Deming 1994 and Osborne & Swarbrick 1997 full texts; Bradley 1975; Hunt 1990; Swarbrick et al. 2002; Hubbert & Rubey 1959.
- Finlay 2011 full text; Georgiev et al. 2016; Head et al. 2003 and Larter et al. 2003 full texts; Craig et al. 2013.
- Magoon & Dow 1994 (AAPG Memoir 60); Hantschel & Kauerauf 2009.
- Whelan et al. 1994, 2001 and Anderson et al. 1994 on Eugene Island.