Does Deep Earth Host Untapped Fuel?

Jan. 19, 2005 — -- Thomas Gold was not your typical radical. Far from being a mad scientist, he was a brilliant professor of astronomy at Cornell University, but he succeeded in driving many others mad with theories that flew in the face of conventional wisdom.

His most controversial idea was among his last, and geologists and petroleum experts around the world still rage against Gold for suggesting they were dead wrong in their understanding of how oil and gas are formed in the Earth's crust.

Now, a couple of decades after Gold first suggested that hydrocarbons are formed deep underground by geological processes and not just below the surface by biological decay, there is increasing evidence that he may have been on to something.

If he was wrong, he may have erred only in taking his idea too far. Gold argued that all hydrocarbons are formed in the intense pressure and high heat near the Earth's mantle, around 100 miles under the ground. If he was right, it means the finite limits of the resources that power our cities and our factories and our vehicles have been vastly overstated.

Oil and gas fields are continually replenished by hydrocarbons manufactured far below the Earth, he argued. So there is no fuel crisis. As long as the Earth grinds along on its orbit around the sun, hydrocarbons will continue to be produced, and we can all roll along with no fear of running out of gas.

It should be said at this point that virtually no experts believe that to be the case. But several prestigious organizations have found evidence that methane, the main component of natural gas, can indeed be formed under conditions like those found deep in the Earth.

Researchers at the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory in Washington, D.C., Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Harvard University, Argonne National Laboratory and Indiana University in South Bend have joined forces to see if they can replicate the geological processes that Gold claimed would produce hydrocarbons.