Thomas Gold (May 22 1920 – June 22 2004) was an Austrian astrophysicist, a professor of astronomy at Cornell University and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences.
Life
Originally from Vienna in Austria, he was educated at Zuoz College in Switzerland and Trinity College, Cambridge. At the start of World War II he faced internment as an enemy alien, where he met Hermann Bondi. Once released, he worked with Bondi and Fred Hoyle (near Dunsfold in Surrey) on radar, a partnership which would extend into astrophysics. He later worked at the Royal Greenwich Observatory and at Harvard.
He was married twice: to Merle Tuberg in 1947 and Carvel Beyer in 1972. He had three daughters by his first wife and one by his second. He died aged 84 years old.
Astrophysics
Gold carried out research on cosmology and on magnetic fields, and coined the term "magnetosphere" for the Earth's magnetic fields.
He, together with Hermann Bondi, developed the steady-state theory. Soon after the discovery of pulsars in 1968, he correctly identified these objects as rapidly rotating neutron stars with strong magnetic fields.
For a number of years Gold promoted the idea that a thick layer of dust would cover many portions of the surface of the Moon. His opinion influenced the design of the American Surveyor lunar landing probes, but their precautions appeared excessive, as Gold had overestimated the extent to which cyclic thermal expansion and contraction would pulverise lunar surface rock.
He won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1985.
Origins of petroleum
Gold achieved fame for his 1992 paper "The Deep Hot Biosphere" in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which presented a controversial view of the origin of coal, oil, and gas deposits, a theory of an abiogenic petroleum origin. The theory suggests that coal and crude oil deposits have their origins in natural gas flows which feed bacteria living at extreme depths under the surface of the Earth; in other words, oil is produced as a byproduct of bacteria, rather than from the decomposition of fossils. Gold also published a book of the same title in 1999, which expanded on the arguments in his 1992 paper and included speculations on the origin of life.
According to Gold and Russian scientific forebears, these bacteria account for the presence of biological debris in hydrocarbon fuels, obviating the need to resort to a biogenic theory for the origin of the latter. Bacterial action may also explain oddities in the concentration of other mineral deposits.
Most western geologists and petrologists consider petroleum abiogenic theories implausible and believe that the biogenic theory of "fossil" fuel formation adequately explains all observed fossil fuel deposits. Most geologists do recognize that the geologic carbon cycle includes subducted carbon which returns to the surface, with studies showing the carbon does rise in various ways. Gold and geology experts point out that the biogenic theories do not explain phenomena such as helium in oil fields and oil fields associated with deep geologic features.
However, recent discoveries have shown that bacteria live at depths far greater than previously believed. Whilst this does not prove Gold's theory, it certainly lends support to its arguments.
A thermal depolymerization process which converts animal waste to carbon fuels does show some processes can be done without bacterial action, but does not explain details of natural oil deposits such as magnetite production.
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