The Deep Hot Biosphere

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Summary: A must-read for any "fossil" fuel consumer
Review: Gold convincingly presents his case for a primordial origin of petroleum (coal, oil, gas) fuels in this easy to read volume. I am amazed that, at the age of 36, I am just now hearing his theories.

To those who choose to dismiss his thesis, I ask you to present your own, more plausible argument. As scientists require that experimental results be successfully replicated before "buying into" a theory, the fact, as Gold states it, that no oil, coal or diamonds have been produced in the laboratory according to the "compressed and heated organic matter" theory, greatly supports his argument that these materials have an abiogenic origin.

If true, the raw material costs for these fuels collapses, completely changing the industries' business models and, on the flip side, reinvigorates the need for pollution and greenhouse gas controls as consumption no doubt will increase.

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Summary: Hot Deep Biosphere
Review: HDB is the most radical earth changing theory since Velikovsky brot 'cataclysmic evolution' out of the fringe, grounding it with vast scientific data, as Gold has done here. Do you recall the U$ energy crises in mid '70s when "Limits to Growth" predicted a run-out of gas/oil in 10-20 yrs. given the rates of consuming it then. Well we didn't run out, while using 'fossil fuels'up even faster, co-creating the 'overheating earth weather patterns now! So Gold is likely correct, the earth is making oil/gas still now! plus other strange subteranian patterns. Some cavers know this, but don't tell or bring up evidence, because its too strange to believe; like billion year old coins from deep in caves/mines. I love these weird earth energy activities. [e-mail]

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Summary: Bold Look At Earth Processes
Review: I am very impressed with 'The Deep Hot Biosphere." Dr. Gold (an iconoclast, it seems) boldly rethinks some very basic assumptions about the formation, and role of, oil, coal, and natural gas. These are not, he says, (with the exception of some soft coals & peat) produced by decaying vegetable matter and dead sea creatures but are pre-existent in the earth and modified by such geological processes as heat, pressure, and chemical oxidation. Some vested interests will not like his conclusions.

His theory of earthquakes, too, flies in the face of conservative paradigms and is a useful adjunct to explain those earthquakes that traditional theories have difficulty with (such as the devestating New Madrid quakes of 1811-12.) The book looks at the very interesting evidence of bacteria happily living deep in the earth's crust, possibly larger in biomass than all above-ground life put together. Was this where life on earth began? And if it did, what's to stop similar organisms from living on other planets, even in our own solar system? Throughout, the book is, refreshingly, clearly written and not at all plodding or condescending.

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Summary: A Classic
Review: I cannot say enough good things about this book. It is not just a window into the Earth, but a window into the sources of organic compounds in carbonaceous meteorites, the early history of "Fox Holes" in the asteroid parent bodies, even the conditions on (and under) Mars - to say nothing of Europa, Ganymede, Enceladus, Titan, and beyond. Some of his ideas are downright creepy, but as every one of his colleagues will attest, during his lifetime Thomas Gold has been right about too many creepy things to ever be dismissed out of hand.

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Summary: The A-Biogenic Theory of Hydrocarbon Origins Comes of Age
Review: I have known Dr. Gold for approximately 20 years. During this time I have written several articles for newsstand periodicals based on his work and writings. My most recent series of articles provides a discussion of how The Deep Hot Biosphere furthers the a-biogenic theory of planetary hydrocarbon formation (i.e. petroleum, coal and methane). Since publication of my articles, I have been overwelmed by reader contacts providing everything from clarifications to praise. I went to great pains to reduce the high science presented by Dr. Gold into a practical discussion regarding the abundance of the world's hydrocarbon energy supplies : There is alot more available than originally/continuously promoted by politicians, environmentalists and petroleum geologists; all of whom have relied on the BIOgenic theory of the 1870's era. Although seemingly unrelated to geopolitics, I encourage readers of all walks and persuasions to read The Deep Hot Biosphere. For those interested in my articles, please start with my October 1999 article The Origins of Oil, in Today's SUV magazine.

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Summary: Gold's Love Oil
Review: Multinational oil companies use microbes that feed on oil to break up oil spills by digesting oil. Evidently the fossil fuel myth is just for public consumption. Gold tells us in this book that Vietnam's White Tiger oil field is producing oil from basement rock, and that hundreds of holes have been drilled down to oil and gas found in basement rock in Russia(Tatarstan), Canadian Shield, and Swedish Siljan Shield.

Even if it is at this time difficult to produce oil or gas from basement rock in most instances, due to the depth of wells, the discovery of oil welling up from below sedimentary rock frees us from the fossil fuel myth. Reserve calculations for oil and gas fields are based on the false assumption that those resources are fixed pockets of fossil fuel, rather than waystations for oil and gas welling up from below. We can stop cannibalizing each other for oil according to the fossil fuel propaganda, and we should not allow gasoline to be priced as if in blood.

Fascinating reading...microbes freeing oxygen from iron oxide(leaving magnetite, marking accessible oil for us) so they can oxidize petroleum as food, cells surviving at temperatures high enough to make steam because steam cannot form at such pressure.

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Summary: the most important book on LIFE since Origin of the Species
Review: The Deep Hot Biosphere When asked to rank the single most important books on LIFE on Earth this century, I would immediately name Vernadsky: The Biosphere / Schroedinger: What is Life / Monod: Chance and Neccessity / Gold: The Deep Hot Biosphere. What F. Capra has done for PHYSICS, Gold does for BIOLOGY ......... the Ying of Surface Life (which we all know about) has now been juxtaposed by the Yang ...... the Deep Hot Biosphere! Stew Kauffmann - move over! "Our place in the Universe" is far less mysterious that you have made us believe ........ Mandelbrodt and Pak only NOW (after Gold that is .......) really start to make sense. C.D's "warm little pond" has channelled all of our thinking into a direction where Urey & Miller were the "best thing going" ............ NOW we can free our minds and look towards a future where Big Oil is not going to frighten us and Big Government is not going to be able to "milk" us dry. BRAVO!!!! This book should primarily be a MUST for science teachers .........

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Summary: Bubbling Crude
Review: There is a place in geology for fruitful speculation, but Gold's thesis misses out. Speaking as a geologist, we actually do have a clear understanding of how oil, gas and coal (e. g., Hypersea) form. The reason most oil is found in the Middle East is because of ancient oceanic productivity in the Tethyan seaway resulting from marine upwelling during the Mesozoic. Gold's thesis is therefore unnecessary. I edited the English translation of Vladimir Vernadsky's book The Biosphere. Vernadsky tells us that there is indeed a Deep Hot Biosphere. It has formed, however, by bacteria moving downward, not by organisms coming up from the the earth's interior where temperatures and pressures make life impossible. I nevertheless have grudging admiration for Gold. I tip my hat to anyone who can convince the Swedes to spend tens of millions to drill a hole in the Siljan impact structure!

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Summary: Revolutionary science
Review: This morning's New York Times featured an article "Methane in Deep Earth: A Possible New Source of Energy" reporting on new research that partly confirms the claim in this book-- that the methane deep in the earth's mantle is primordial (not due to decayed buried vegetation) and is the source of petroleum. The article showed how methane can be generated from water and carbonate rock when the applied pressure is equal to that found in the mantle.

Gold's book describes research done largely by Russians and Ukrainians on the origin of oil, which has been shamefully discounted and ignored in the West. The Western dogma, he claims, is just another one of those things that nearly everyone believes, but is wrong.

I love books like this. It opens up a whole new world of important ideas and questions that need to be addressed, and make the scientific dogmatists who have "proved" their hypothesis by superficial reasoning from the most meager of data, coupled with proof by endless repetition, look as foolish as the geologists who rejected continental drift, or the idiots who still revere Freudian psychoanalysis.

Evidence that he presents is pretty convincing and is a good example of how many diverse lines of evidence can make the convergence on the truth inevitable. Many of the pieces of evidence were quite unknown to the formulators of the "fossil fuel" dogma who emphasize the limited reserves available for extraction. The composition of the gas giant planets with their tremendous quantities of methane can be used to plausibly argue for primordial gas on earth as well. The increasing realization among petroleum geologists that at least some petroleum reservoirs are being filled from below is startling news to many readers. The biological "markers" seen in petroleum are introduced by bacteria to petroleum on its migration toward the surface provide an alternative and plausible explanation of the facts. That Ukraine generates a third of its oil from reservoirs below all sedimentary rock is astounding.

As a physicist at the corporate research labs of a major oil company, I've sat through many presentations of petroleum exploration experts with their tables of C13 data, interpreted as signs of age and origins of oil, and I even then recognized the signs of smoke and mirrors. I only wish I'd read Gold earlier...

Gold's book is also concerned with many other aspects of the consequences of the presence of biology deep within the earth that are just as intriguing. That microbes exist deep in the earth and have a life style entirely independent from photosynthetic energy from the sun is an idea that is only now beginning to be accepted by some of the more daring Western petroleum engineers. Russians have known this for more than fifty years. The idea that better earthquake predictions can be made, and that fossil fuel reserves are much greater than publicized in the popular press, are big, important ideas that would have tremendous political impact if true.

I very much enjoyed Gold's style of writing, which is clear and straightforward, and the story he tells is a very important one, deserving of much more attention and research. The book has a gratifying number of illustrations and is well organized. The notes give a good introduction to the scientific literature on the subject, but I think some criticism can be leveled at Gold for writing as though he had been a major discoverer of many of the pieces of evidence, when he is actually playing more of a role as a popularizer for the findings of the Russians and others. But reviewers, and even popularizers, are not to be sneered at. They play an important and honorable role in the progress of science--Gold does an outstanding job here. Well worth reading.

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Summary: The Fabulous Planet Beneath Us
Review: Thomas Gold is brilliant and his 'Deep Hot Biosphere' is a watershed book which is bound to upset the status quo in the stodgy world of planetary and geological sciences. Perhaps the most astounding ideas presented--with considereable data--is that life extends far deeper in the Earth than previously acknowledged and that petroleum, long thought to be a 'fossil fuel' is in fact non-biological (biochemicals associated with oil are there because of bacteria living in the petroleum) and an extraterrestrial substance which is in far greater abundance than ever imagined! Gold is on the cutting-edge of planetary science--this book is controversial and revolutionary in 2000. By 2050, Gold's ideas will be well established facts.