Dive deep into Thomas Gold’s revolutionary challenge to conventional geology with this explainer video on his book, The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil Fuels.
This comprehensive analysis, rooted in the theories of the eminent astronomer and Cornell University professor emeritus, radically dismantles the entrenched belief that oil and gas are “fossil fuels” derived solely from decomposed biological debris. Gold proposes the deep-earth gas theory, asserting that hydrocarbons are a renewable, primordial syrup continually supplied from the Earth’s ultrahot interior, available since the planet’s formation.
The video highlights crucial supporting evidence, including the testimony of petroleum geologist Robert A. Hefner III and the puzzling phenomenon of petroleum reservoirs that refill. Learn how Gold solves the infamous petroleum paradox: if hydrocarbons are primordial, why do they contain biological molecules? The answer lies in the Deep Hot Biosphere, a massive subterranean ecosystem populated by extremophile microorganisms, including hyperthermophiles and archaea, that feed on upwelling abiogenic petroleum.
This microbial activity contaminates oil and gas, leaving detectable biological signatures such as hopanoids and producing fine-grained magnetite (as observed in the famous Siljan Ring drilling experiment in Sweden). Expanding on the work of Russian scientific pioneers like Dmitry Mendeleyev and N. A. Koudryavtsev, Gold’s findings suggest hydrocarbons are ubiquitous, explaining the undeniable association of oil and gas with primordial helium-3 [72, 217n16] and challenging assumptions about the origins of black coal.
Finally, discover the explosive implications of Gold’s work, from revolutionizing our search for extraterrestrial life (looking in planets, not on them) to offering a unified explanation for the true causes of earthquakes, linked to sudden, volatile gas emissions from the deep Earth. As praised by Freeman Dyson, Gold’s concepts are “always original, always important, and usually right”.
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The Duke Report - Where to Start
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Palmerston’s Zoo Episode 01 - Solving the Paradox of Current World History (9 Episodes)
Oligarchic Control from the Renaissance to the Information Age
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