Natural and Laboratory-Simulated Thermal Geochemical Processes compares a series of thermal natural geochemical events with thermally laboratory-simulated processes. The emphasis is on the geothermal events occurring in nature compared with those simulated in the laboratory, thus furnishing important information at the molecular level for such processes. The book covers the following topics: -Generation of petroleum and its thermal cracking; -Pyrolysis of oil-shales; -Formation of coal and its gasification and liquification; -Thermal liquification of biomass; -Geothermal energy; -Thermal generation of fullerenes; -Thermal formation of diamonds; -Thermal analysis of organo-clay complexes; -Geochemical conditions for life emergence.