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GOLD

                                           November 30, 2003
                                           December  1, 2003
                                      Rev: November 27, 2006


I was thinking of Thomas Gold
as an example of a wide-ranging
scientist (nominally an
astrophysist) who's
iconoclastic ideas have turned
out to be correct fairly often.

And yet, he has been largely
ignored by mainstream                 It seems that in Thomas
geologists when he ventured           Gold's case, scientists
into their territory.                 don't like to hear a
                                      voice from outside of
He makes an interesting               their discipline...
case in his book "The
Deep Hot Biosphere"...

His thesis: "fossil" fuels
aren't from fossils.  They're
remnants of abiological
hydrocarbons whose existence
preceeded the formation of
the earth.                               Some people are inclined to
                                         regard this idea as good news.
Hydrocarbons can definitely              "See, we're *not* going to
be formed by cosmic processes            run out of oil.  Or at least,
(e.g. they've been observed              natural gas."
in nebula by spectroscopic
analysis).                                       If you buy the Anthropogenic
                                                 Global Warming idea, this is
This means that they may have been               definitely not good news:
present in some form in the cloud of             carbon emissions are not
stuff the earth condensed out of.                going to be choked off by a
Gold's theory is that there's a lot of           resource shortage.
cosmic hydrocarbons trapped inside the
earth, and it's still gradually leaking
out, making it's way upwards, but
getting modified by heat and pressure,
and filtered by the rock it's moving
through... and *also* being modified by
life deep underground.

This is why Gold's book is titled
"The Deep Hot Biosphere": he
contends that the earth's
biosphere extends much deeper than
is often supposed, and that there            So: Gold's theory involves
are a lot of strange bugs adapted            *two* changes from conventional
to high temperature and pressure             wisdom -- and that's enough to
living deep underground (think               give me pause, but at least
about the bacteria they've found             both notions have some support
in the mouths of deep ocean                  in observed fact.
volcanic vents).
                                                He makes a presumption
This is an important part of                    of universality: hydrocarbons
Gold's theory, because one of the               in the sky may map to
better pieces of evidence for the               hydrocarbons underground;
biologic oil formation (which                   extreme bacteria under the
Gold needs to explain away) is                  ocean may map to extreme
that oil *looks* like stuff                     bacteria underground.
messed with by living creatures.

    To quote Robert Ehrlich's summary:
    "The phenomenon of optical
    activity shows that petroleum
    contains unequal numbers of right-
    or left-handed molecules.  Here
    again we have an indicator of the
    effects of life since living
    organisms have evolved to eat
    substances such as right-handed
    sugar (dextrose) but not its
    left-handed mirror image
    (levitose)."

     And further: "Finding
     biological traces in
     petroleum need not point to a
     biogenic origin, but could
     equally well be explained
     based on a biological
     contamination of a
     hyrdrocarbon fluid coming up
     from great depth."



Thomas Gold's case seems to be better
for some forms of fossil fuels than
for others (roughly: gas > oil
> coal), but Gold *is* willing to
go all the way and make a case for
coal.

E.g. there's a section titled "The
Upwelling Theory of Coal Formation" that
starts on p.86 of Thomas Gold's book

 "I contend that although peat and lignite do
  originate from decomposed biological debris,
  black coals do not.  In my view, black coals
  form from the same upwelling of deep
  hydrocarbons that accumulate as crude oil
  and natural gas.  With coal, however, the
  hydrogen component has been further driven
  off, leaving behind a greatly
  carbon-enriched, hydrogen-impoverished
  hydrocarbon."

  "It is indeed true that coal sometimes --
  though by no means always -- contains some
  fossils, but those fossils themselves create a
  problem for the biogenic theory.  First, why
  did the odd fossil retain its structure with
  perfection, sometimes down to the cellular
  level, when other, presumably much larger
  quantities of such debris adjoining it were so
  completely demolished that no structure can be
  identified at all?"



    As I understand it, things are
    looking pretty good for Gold's
    thesis (e.g. that's Robert
    Ehrlich's conclusion in his           CRAZYIDEAS
    "Nine Crazy Ideas" book).



                                                    Carnegie Institution,
                 Freeman Dyson mentions some        [Scott et al., 2004].
                 laboratory data showing a
                 mechanism for methane formation
                 in the earth's core: the only
                 question then is does it make it
                 up to where we can reach it
                 before it recombines.

                    [ref]



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