Back in college several of the professors would comment on their belief (and science) that there were deep oil microbe sources, but they were on the fringes. IIRC they said it didn’t matter a whole lot with regard to exploration (that’s what my school taught) as it still needed to get trapped so we could get to it.
I recall a professional talk years after college where some guy proposed that these deep sources were on some sort of regular pattern across the globe - something like the dimples in a golf ball. Something to do with stresses and magnetic fields??? That seemed more like a quack theory, but who knows?
I worked for a company that was involved with drilling deep next to volcanic zones looking to extract deep oil-eating microbes for research into cleaning up oil spills and groundwater contamination.
While pretty cool stuff, I had visions of them growing these microbes, it getting out of control, and they end up eating all hydrocarbon materials (rubber hoses, etc.) I think the Andromeda Strain did that!?
He ultimately failed, but his failure did not prove there was no such oil. It might just have been somewhere else or deeper.
Thank you for sharing and congratulations on that fascinating part of your career.
Doctor Thomas Gold hypothesized this 20 years ago...
The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil Fuels
Thomas Gold, Author, F. Dyson, Foreword by Copernicus Books
The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil Fuels
When scientists discovered thermophiles—primitive microorganisms that live in deep seafloor vents and eat hydrocarbons (chemicals like gasoline)—experts assumed the mysterious bugs had little to tell us about ourselves or about the earth’s core. Cornell University Professor Emeritus Gold, however, who for 20 years directed the Cornell Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, here proposes the striking theory that “”a full functioning... biosphere, feeding on hydrocarbons, exists deep within the earth, and that a primordial source of hydrocarbons lies even deeper.”” Most scientists think the oil we drill for comes from decomposed prehistoric plants. Gold believes it has been there since the earth’s formation, that it supports its own ecosystem far underground and that life there preceded life on the earth’s surface. The “”deep hot biosphere”” hypothesis would explain the thermophiles, the minerals and the oil Swedish drillers found in 1990 under rock where no one expected them. The hot goo and massed gas far under our feet would also explain some mysterious historical earthquakes (notably the New Madrid, Mo., shocker of 1811), and it would tell puzzled geologists why so many oil reserves just happen to sit underneath coal fields. As later chapters explain, if Gold is right, the planet’s oil reserves are far larger than policymakers expect, and earthquake-prediction procedures require a shakeup; moreover, astronomers hoping for extraterrestrial contacts might want to stop seeking life on other planets and inquire about life in them.
Reviewed on: 11/02/1998