I know enough about his work on origins of hydrocarbons to recognize  that “…petroleum in the earth was formed at the earth’s creation and is slowly seeping up…” is a misrepresentation of his viewpoints and work. He would not deny that coal often contains fossils of recognizable plants. I’ve met him, read some of his work, used scientific facilities he helped develop and managed and have seen him speak. It’s a good bet he was more careful, rigorous, rational and reasonable (able to be reasoned with) than you, but I’m guessing he wouldn’t give you the time of day unless you had something to say he hadn’t heard or thought about before.

It’s fine to call him crazy and a crackpot, MonkeyBoy. This brand of criticism was freely expressed when he was able to defend himself. But I’m not going to let it go by without mentioning that he was a scientist.

“Thomas Gold was a scientist, a long shot away from a crackpot.”

Just because someone is recognized as a scientist doesn’t mean that they cannot be crackpots. Would you like examples of crazy scientists?

Currently all advocates of “abiogenic petroleum” are crackpots or have a hidden agenda.

Your wikipidia link reads as a puff piece that fail to mention how ridiculous many of his theories are and how they were derided at the time he proposed them, as well as barely mentioning his plagiarism issues.

As one small example, consider his theory that coal is made by bacteria from the methane that flows underground, as opposed to being fossilized plants. This flies in the face of coal containing fossils of recognizable plants.

Also, the professor who gave me a C (and who gave me a 6/100 on one of the exams) showed me some of the exceedingly rare rocks from his research in his office, including ones chock-full of (non-gem-quality) diamonds that formed in the mantle. There are very few ways for rocks to come to the surface intact from the mantle (without being metamorphasized) which is why there’s so little known about this stuff.

Some scientists think the carbon is stuff that’s existed in the Earth since this planet was formed.

Careful there – you are nearing the theory of Abiogenic petroleum,  a crackpot theory favored by Creationists and Peak Oil deniers that the petroleum in the earth was formed at the earth’s creation and is slowly seeping up and will never run out.

While coal comes from land plants, petroleum comes from ocean algae which has been around longer and may have been subducted.

Though, really, let’s be honest – diamonds are just inferior moissanite in every way except pure hardness, and moissanite is pretty competitive there too.