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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).
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