The author's theory proposes answers to often-asked questions: Is the deep hot biosphere where life originated, and do Mars and other seemingly barren planets contain deep biospheres? Even more provocatively, is it possible that there is an enormous store of hydrocarbons upwelling from deep within the earth that can provide us with abundant supplies of gas and petroleum? However far-fetched these ideas seem, they are supported by a growing body of evidence.

No other book comes even close to proposing that there is a huge mass of life living within the earth, that it is sustained in its sunless and airless subterranean environment by hydrocarbons, and that those hydrocarbons--natural gas and petroleum--are not fossil fuels but a primordial basic component of our planet and the universe.

From the reviews:

"always original, always important, usually controversial, and usually right"

• FROM THE FOREWORD BY FREEMAN DYSON

"an extraordinary theory from one of the world's most original minds."

• NIGEL HAWKES, THE TIMES, LONDON

"The leading supporter of the abiotic theory in the U.S. is Prof. Thomas Gold of Cornell. His 1999 book, The Deep Hot Biosphere (Springer-Verlag) is a thorough discussion of the issues. It is based in part on research financed by the U.S. Geological Survey. Among prominent scientists whose work supports the abiotic theory are Jean Whelan of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Mahlon Kennicutt of Texas A&M University, and J.F Kenny of the Gas Resources Corporation."

• http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=4092

"There is much to be said about this important book . Gold exhibits the irreversible and universal genius that we recognize in Aristotle and Leonardo da Vinci. The versatility and rangeof knowledge exhibited is remarkable. The Deep Hot Biosphere is a highly interesting and important book; it should be required reading for every geology student." (David Deming, Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 17 (2), 2003)

"Thomas Gold is a physicist who is not afraid of controversy. His big new theory is that oil and natural gas are produced by geology and chemistry of the hot deep layers below the Earth's surface . The book is the best kind of science writing: contentious and passionate, with all the evidence there for you to weigh up." (New Scientist, August, 2001)

Inhalt
1 Our Garden of Eden.- The Narrow Window for Surface Life.- Chemical Energy for Subsurface Life.- A Preview of This Book.- 2 Life at the Borders.- Energy Deep in the Earth.- The Ecology of Deep-Ocean Vent Life.- Other Borderland Ecologies.- Deep Is Desirable.- Beneath the Borderlands.- 3 The Deep-Earth Gas Theory.- The Origin of Petroleum: Two Conflicting Theories.- Five Assumptions Underlying the Deep-Earth Gas Theory.- 4 Evidence for Deep-Earth Gas.- Petroleum Reservoirs That Refill.- Clues in the Carbonate Record.- The Association of Helium with Hydrocarbons.- 5 Resolving the Petroleum Paradox.- The Deep Hot Biosphere Solution.- Biological Molecules in Non-Biological Petroleum.- The Upwelling Theory of Coal Formation.- Evidence for the Upwelling Theory.- An Exemption for Peat.- 6 The Siljan Experiment.- Drilling in Swedish Granite.- Magnetite and Microbial Geology.- 7 Extending the Theory.- The Origin of Diamonds.- A New Explanation for Concentrated Metal Deposits.- 8 Rethinking Earthquakes.- Mud Volcanoes.- A Challenge to Earthquake Theory.- Eyewitness Accounts.- Earthquake Spots and Earth Mounds.- Upwelling Deep Gas as the Cause of Earthquakes.- 9 The Origin of Life.- The Habitability of Surface and Subsurface Realms.- The Enhanced Probability for Life's Origin.- Darwin's Dilemma.- 10 What Next?.- Microbial Investigations.- Prospects for Extraterrestrial Surface Life.- Deepening the Search for Extraterrestrial Life.- Independent Beginnings or Panspermia?.- Afterword to the Paperback Edition.- Notes.- Acknowledgments.