- Deep within the Earth's crust is a vast
ecosystem of primitive bacteria nurtured by a reservoir of hydrocarbons
of unimaginable size, much of it untapped. The microbes predate all of
the planet's other life forms, existing even before photosynthesis became
the preferred life-giving form.
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- In a new book, "The Deep Hot Biosphere
"(Copernicus/Springer-Verlag, $27), Cornell Professor emeritus of
astronomy Thomas Gold argues that subterranean bugs started the whole evolutionary
process -- and that there's no looming energy shortage, because oil reserves
are far greater than predicted.
-
- Were this anyone but Gold, the reaction
from the scientific community might be a skeptical raised eyebrow. But
Gold, Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at Cornell amd a perennial gadfly,
makes his argument with erudition and conviction. Founder and director
of Cornell's Center for Radiophysics and Space Research for two decades,
Gold is hardly a stranger to sticking his neck out.
-
- And he has been proven right in such
diverse realms as a theory of hearing, the interpretation of pulsars, and
a theory of the Earth's axis of rotation. Which may be why he has received
such honors as Fellow of the Royal Society (London); Member, National Academy
of Sciences (US); Fellow, American Geophysical Union; Honorary Fellow,
Trinity College, Cambridge; Gold Medal, Royal Astronomical Society (UK)
ND Honorary M.A., Harvard University.
-
- Gold is also a member of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Philosophical Society.
-
- Before founding and for 20 years serving
as director of Cornell's Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, Gold
was the John L. Wetherill Professor of Astronomy at Cornell and Chairman
of the Department of Astronomy and Assistant Vice President for Research.
-
- Previously, he was Robert Wheeler Willson
Professor of Applied Astronomy at Harvard; Chief Assistant to the British
Astronomer Royal and Lecturer in advanced physics at Cambridge. Gold did
radar development work for the British Admiralty during World War II.
-
- Gold's most controversial idea, as physicist
Freeman Dyson notes in the book's foreword, is that of the nonbiological
origin of natural gas and oil, which he first proposed more than 20 years
ago. These hydrocarbons, Gold postulated, come from deep reservoirs and
are composed of the material from which the Earth condensed.
-
- The idea that hydrocarbons coalesced
from organic material is, Gold says, quite wrong. The biological molecules
found in oil, he avers, show only that the oil is contaminated by microbes,
not that it was produced by them.
-
- Some researchers, and in particular petroleum
geologists, have taken issue with Gold's proposal. They are likely to be
even more put out by his new book, which says that these microbes populate
the Earth's interior down to a depth of several miles -- and that everything
we see living on the planet's surface is only a small part of the biosphere.
The greater part, the ancient part, is very deep and very hot, he says.
-
- Gold shows irritation with a scientific
community that "has typically sought only surface life in the heavens."
Scientists, he writes, "have been hindered by a sort of 'surface chauvinism.'"
-
- And what about other planets. Gold says:
"Spectroscopic evidence is very strong for many planetary bodies.
The prime example is Titan (a moon of Saturn), which has clouds of ethane
and methane. They interchange with the surface, so there must be lakes
or oceans of liquid ethane or methane. Once you know that, it's clear they
came outside from the body within."
-
- He writes that life on many other planetary
bodies seems probable even though their surfaces are either too hot or
too cold to support life. Subsurface life, however, is another matter:
"Mars, the satellites of the major planets, many asteroids and even
our own moon should be regarded as real prospects for harboring extraterrestrial
life of this kind," he writes.
-
- On Earth, Gold says, there is clear evidence
that subsurface microbial life still exists -- for example, in the discovery
of primitive microbes in hot ocean vents. "We pulled up bugs from
five kilometers down in the granite in Sweden. They were perfectly alive
and probably the earliest life form on the planet," he says. The primitive
microbes, he notes, are thermophiles and hyperthermophiles, heat-loving
archaebacteria.
-
- Photosynthesis, his book argues, "developed
in offshoots of subterranean life that had progressed toward the surface
and then evolved a way to use photons to supply even more chemical energy."
When surface conditions such as temperature and liquid water became favorable
to life, surface life was able to blossom.
-
- In the eons since, the deep world of
microbes has had to rely on chemical energy, the oxidation of hydrocarbons,
ranging from methane to petroleum, as the organisms emerge upwards from
deep reservoirs below. "Every oil-bearing region in the world must
have large amounts of microbiology," Gold says.
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- He writes: "In my view, hydrocarbons
are not biology reworked by geology (as the traditional view would hold)
but rather geology reworked by biology. In other words, hydrocarbons are
primordial, but as they upwell into Earth's outer crust microbial life
invades."
-
- Reviewing the book, Publishers Weekly
noted that "if Gold is right, the planet's oil reserves are far larger
than policy-makers expect ... moreover, astronomers hoping for extraterrestrial
contacts might want to stop seeking life 'on' other planets and inquire
about life 'in' them."
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- Related link: Thomas Gold's overview
of his new book, "The Deep Hot Biosphere" <http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/tg21/
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