The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth Of Fossil Fuels

Gold's book explodes the conventional explanation we all got in school for how coal, oil and gas came about. His thesis is that these so-called "fossil fuels" are not fossil fuels at all. The book is very clear and well written. Though it goes into some chemistry, it is not beyond the understanding of someone without a background in the subject. The book brings into question established scientific dogma about not only oil, coal and gas, but the very origins of life. Gold is a real scientist going where the evidence leads him.

You can learn a lot from certain atheists. I'm not being facetious. Jesse Ventura is a good example because the men behind the curtains are not invisible to him. Thomas Gold is another good example of the fact that while an atheist may be tragically blind in one category of life, it does not necessarily mean unbelief is blind in every category.I came of age in the 1970's, and I remember when it was widely reported that the global supply of crude oil would be exhausted in just a matter of decades. Gold points out that this dire prediction failed to materialize because the mainstream scientific assumptions that undergirded that idea are flawed. Gold refutes the common belief that petroleum is of biogenic origin, but is instead derived from the initial materials that formed the earth. In other words, there's a domain of life down deep that produces oil and gas - it did not come from the remains of expired surface life that sank down under. Of course, if this theory of Gold (and the Russian researchers he mentioned in the book) is correct, the practical ramifications transcend the borders of science. If the deep, hot biosphere becomes an accepted reality, industrial searches for earth resources will gratefully adapt, and indeed, at least some momentum in that awakening commercial mode has already begun.Along with Hermann Bondi in another book, Gold put forth the steady-state theory of the universe which sees Big Bangs as cyclical events that have always existed and always will. Of course, the need for a Creator is neatly dismissed by the steady-state theory. Gold also understands that the process of photosynthesis is too complex a process to have evolved by random mutation and natural selection among the complex life forms known on the surface of our planet. He clearly views the thesis of this book as being the best solution to that issue. The needed long ages of developmental evolution could have brewed underfoot long before there was a foot above. In a discussion of autocatalytic molecules inhabiting the subsurface of the earth, Gold attempts to rescue random chance from the inescapable dungeon of statistical improbability. Well, that arrow missed.His chapter nine is about the origin of life. I know, I know, an atheist on the origin of life, but just wait. Some people evidently believe that panspermia means that sentient aliens intentionally seeded our planet with life from their spaceships or from some other unknown mode of interplanetary travel. I did not expect Gold to support such a dubious notion, and I was not disappointed. The panspermia Gold postulates is interplanetary microbial infection at random and by meteorites. And it was the deep, hot biosphere that was infected and evolved, not surface life. For Gold, the simpler life forms of the deep could much better evolve and develop with out direction and design. Only later could surface life develop - long after the simpler forms had gotten the evolutionary ball rolling.These are not just wild ideas on Gold's part. He presents good logic and evidence to support all that he says short of his underlying left-turn assumption that there is no Creator. The next time I hear the term fossil fuels, I'll know better than to swallow that meme thanks to Gold. He is, I believe, right about the origin of oil and gas in one breath, despite the atheism of his next breath. This book is not about his unbelief, and since it is not, but is instead a well written book explaining a "deep" alternative of the origin of oil and various gases, I gave it 5 stars.

The conventional wisdom concerning oil, gas and coal, or fossil fuels as they are called is that they originated many eons ago as plants and animals that died and were buried. Deep under the surface, their remains were slowly transformed into the carbon compounds that make up coal and petroleum. The evidence for this view is that fossilized remains of life are generally associated with fossil fuels. The conventional wisdom is also that the surface of the Earth is the place where life originated and flourishes while conditions deep under the surface are too hot to support any life.What if the conventional wisdom is wrong? What if the petroleum and coal that we depend on did not come from ancient life but instead came from carbon that has been present since the beginning of the Earth? What if under the surface of the Earth there was a whole biosphere of microorganisms? Surface life makes use of the energy of the Sun though photosynthesis. What if the microorganisms under the earth make use of chemosynthesis using the carbon as it is transported toward the surface, and oxygen? In other words, what if fossil fuels are not fossils at all, but a part of the Earth that has been transformed by sub surface life?This is Thomas Gold's hypothesis that he presents in his book, The Deep, Hot Biosphere. He makes a very convincing case and his hypothesis, if true, can explain a great many geological phenomena not well understood at present, such as the formation of metal ores in veins, some questions about earthquakes, and others. Gold points out that conditions under the Earth would be far more favorable for the origin of life that the surface. In the final chapter, Gold examines the possibilities of extra-terrestrial life. So far, we have not found life on any other planet of the Solar System, but perhaps we are not looking in the right place. The surface of Mars, the Moon and the satellites of the gas giants are all hostile to life, but maybe we should look under the surface. Perhaps deep within Mars there lies the life we have been searching for.Is the deep, hot biosphere hypothesis true? I couldn't say not being an expert in this field. However, I will say that Thomas Gold shows himself to be a first class scientist by asking the questions. There has been a tendency in recent years to view science as some sort of final authority with all of the answers. How many times have you heard the latest study viewed as some sort of message from on high, or heard the phrase settled science? This is a misuse of science. Science is not an authority, but a method for asking the questions. Sometimes the most important work a scientist can do is to ask questions that everyone thinks they know the answer to. In this regard, The Deep, Hot Biosphere is an interesting book that is sure to make you think.

Worth a read for sure. It presents some very interesting, non-mainstream, ideas and I think it does well at making a convincing argument. It has definitely opened my mind to other possibilities.

Auf das Buch wurde ich durch den – kürzlich verstorbenen, sehr verdienten – Architekten K. Fischer aufmerksam. Seine Frage an den dt. Vorstand eines der großen Ölkonzerne, was er „als kleiner Architekt den Häuslbauern sagen soll, wenn sie KEINE Ölheizung mehr einzubauen wünschen“, nachdem er dieses Buch gelesen und erfahren hatte, daß sich die Kohlenstoff-Brennstoffe (Öl, Gas, Kohle!) laufend ergänzen und eben nicht das Umwand-lungs-Produkt vorzeitlicher Biosphäre auf der Erdoberfläche sind, war die: Es liegt auf meinen Nachtkästchen – und alles was Gold schrieb ist richtig. ... aber die „Kommunikations-politik“ wird in den USA gemacht.Auf gut Deutsch: es gibt keine Knappheit an den Energie-Rohstoffen.Die Russen haben das schon vor etlichen Jahrzehnten bemerkt, als sie sibirische leergepumpte Gasfelder nach einigen Jahren bei Nachschau wieder gefüllt vorfanden.Golds Theorie ist bestechend – und überzeugend, weil sie jene nicht erklärbaren Paradoxien der heute immer noch verbreiteten Lehrmeinung, daß sich die Kohlenwasserstoffe aus den Oberflächen-Urwäldern und sonstigen Biosphärenprodukten gebildet hätten erklärt, und auch, daß die chemisch in einer Sauerstoff-reichen Atmosphäre gar nicht so verlaufende Anreiche-rung von Wasserstoff am Kohlenstoff-Atom möglich ist und nur in den tiefen Schichten der Erde erklärbar sei. Nach geltender Erfahrung verlauft der Umwandlungsprozeß nämlich gegenteilig: Oxydation des Kohlenstoffs – und damit zu CO2, einem „stabilen“ Endprodukt, das für unsere Energiegewinnung überdies unbrauchbar wäre.Gold erklärte auch, daß solche Ansichten bis dato von keinem wissenschaftlichen Journal publiziert worden sei, und er nur deshalb der „damnatio memoriae“ entgangen war, weil er auf dem Gebiet der Astrophysik sich schon einen Namen gemacht hatte.Das Buch ist jedenfalls „ein Hammer“! – Das wissen die Distributoren inzwischen auch, denn die deutsche Übersetzung dieses Werkes kostet inzwischen ca. 400,- Euro, womit es praktisch am Markt nicht existiert. Nun, Gottseidank, ist die englische Ausgabe mit einem üblichen Preis von knapp 20,- € zu haben, und wer hinreichend die Sprache versteht, dem kann man das Buch nur wärmstens empfehlen.Allerdings wird mit diesem Wissen der ohnmächtige Zorn über die total verblödete Energiewende-Politik kaum noch zu ertragen.DI Gerhoch Reisegger

Excellent product, exactly what I was wanting

Erstaunlich, dass der Nachweis über den Ursprung von Kohlenwasserstoffen so lange unter den Teppich gekehrt werden kann.-Bei der Treibhauslüge hat er allerdings nicht weiter recherchiert und schreibt den üblichen durch keinerlei Messung bestätigten Unsinn ab (allerdings unwichtig, da schlicht nur Randthema).

warum in aller welt ist ein solch nachgefragtes buch in deutschland in unsrer sprache wohl nicht käuflich?möchte man solch ketzerische ansichten vorenthalten und demonstriert dieser art ganz einfach den wahren stellenwert der so oft bemühten meinungsfreiheit?