Deep Carbon Observatory News

Way back in 2007-2009, inspired by the late Tommy Gold, Jesse Ausubel joined Robert Hazen and Russell Hemley in launching the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO).  The program is now at a peak of activity, as well reported in the DCO’s August newsletter From the Deep.

We offer below some prior posts about deep carbon.

7 December 2016

The Deep Carbon Observatory, which Jesse Ausubel has helped create and manage, offers some new short, enjoyable videos about its work.  For example, Deep life Volcano prediction…

8 October 2016

Deep Carbon Observatory researchers have created an eye-popping animation that shows volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and associated emissions since 1960…and reveals the seamy structure of the Earth.  See the press release about Exhaling Earth and the 70-second E3 animation..

9 September 2016

Deep Carbon Observatory researchers set off on quest to find the top temperature limit for life.  Jesse, who helps manage the program for the Sloan Foundation, will join the shore-based team for a few days in early October.  You can enter your own guess for the limit and win a prize!

2 November 2015

Jesse offered the closing remarks in Italian at the 9 October symposium of the Deep Carbon Observatory at the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome.  An English translation is also included at the link.

15 December 2014

Deep carbon science is rising.  A Press release highlights publication of the Deep Carbon Observatory’s midterm scientific report and participation at the 2014 AGU Fall Meeting, 15-19 December 2014 in San Francisco, USA.  Jesse Ausubel continues to advise the program and marvel at the abundance of methane and hydrogen.

10 December 2013

The Deep Carbon Observatory announced exciting discoveries about hard rock life and production of hydrogen to feed the life by cooking water, rock, and aluminum oxide together.

5 June 2013

Yikes, we realize we never posted the 4 March news of the release of the baseline report of the Deep Carbon Observatory. The Press Release, which Jesse helped draft with Terry Collins, provides an excellent summary of the DCO program. The baseline is the landmark, freely available (open access) volume Carbon in Earth and its […]

19 March 2013

In 2008, with Robert Hazen and Russell Hemley of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Jesse helped initiate the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The DCO recently passed a major milestone with the publication of its 700-page baseline report, Carbon in Earth. A press release summarizes some of the […]

16 May 2011

The newsletter Oilprice.com takes an interest in the Deep Carbon Observatory and abiogenic methane in a good article,The Search for Deep Oil and Gas, by Brian Westenhaus. Deep Carbon Interest in the Oil and Gas sector

23 December 2009

The new international Deep Carbon Observatory https://dco.ciw.edu/ led by Robert Hazen and Russ Hemley has launched its website.  Jesse and Veselin Kostov have helped initiate the DCO and look forward to many discoveries. Enjoy Bob Hazen’s excellent radio interview on Science Friday.

11 February 2008

Where did petroleum come from? How did it form? When? These are the first few questions the great scientist Dmitri Mendeleev asked in the chapter “On the origins of petroleum” in his book “Petroleum industry in Pennsylvania and Caucasus“. The year was 1877, 120 years after Mikhail Lomonosov pronounced that oil is a fossil fuel. […]

15 November 2006

Under PHE auspices, Evgeny Yantovski, one of the originators of the concept of Zero Emission Power Plants, has written a startlingly imaginative tribute to the late Tommy Gold, “Thomas Gold and the Future of Methane as a Fuel,” in which Evgeny presents Fayalite as a fuel, with methane being the energy carrier. Viewed in this […]

23 September 2004

Our endlessly creative and provocative Cornell colleague Thomas Gold passed away on 22 June at age 84. Tommy pioneered thinking about abiogenic methane and the deep hot biosphere. He opened our eyes in the late 1970s to the possibility that the popular beliefs about the origins of “fossil fuels”, and their abundance and distribution, might […]