Replies

Hold on a minute! Thomas Gold is an astrophysicist and his petroleum geology theories have been widely discredited. Here's a quote from his own webpage (your link):

"Drilling deep into the crystalline granite of Sweden between 1986 and 1993 revealed substantial amounts of natural gas and oil. 80 barrels of oil were pumped up from a depth between 5.2 km and 6.7 km. "

Gold conned the Swedes into testing out his pet theory concerning astroblemes (meteor impact sites) and the occurrence of petroleum hydrocarbons. Ask the Swedes what they think about Gold's "theory". Abiogenic methane, degassing from the mantle, is a well-recognized phenomenon. Gold believed that it was the major source and building block for more complex hydrocarbons - as compared to the well-developed process of petroleum catagenesis. Gold's claim of obtaining "substantial" oil and gas from crystalline rocks is a misnomer. The scant amount of petroleum hydrocarbons found in the Siljan Ring astrobleme complex were most likely generated from organic, sedimentary rocks adjacent to the impact site, which were subjected to instantaneous great heat and pressure (as compared to long-term maturation of petroleum source rocks). One would expect the pitifully small amount of petroleum Gold found - especially in light of the surface oil seeps found in the area. No one else has taken him up on his theories since then. He should stick to astronomy.

It's even better than the article states, if Thomas Gold is correct.

See http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/tg21/ and then decide how many SUVs you should buy.

Thomas Gold rocks! This article backs up many of his observations.