Posted on 11/04/2005 5:00:06 AM PST by PatrickHenry
Minerals help molecules thought to have been essential for early life to form.
A team of US scientists may have found the 'primordial womb' in which the first life on Earth was incubated.
Lynda Williams and colleagues at Arizona State University in Tempe have discovered that certain types of clay mineral convert simple carbon-based molecules to complex ones in conditions mimicking those of hot, wet hydrothermal vents (mini-volcanoes on the sea bed). Such complex molecules would have been essential components of the first cell-like systems on Earth.
Having helped such delicate molecules to form, the clays can also protect them from getting broken down in the piping hot water issuing from the vents, the researchers report in the journal Geology [Williams L. B., et al. Geology, 33. 913 - 916 (2005).].
"It's very interesting that the clays preserve them," says James Ferris, a specialist on the chemical origins of life at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. "It shows that this could be an environment where complex organic molecules can be formed."
Some like it hot
Hydrothermal vents are created when seawater that has seeped through cracks in the seafloor is heated by magma just below the surface. The water streams back out of the rock in a plume that can reach temperatures of around 400 °C.
Vents are a favourite candidate for the site where life first appeared. Their heat provides an energy source; the minerals provide nutrients; and the deep-sea setting would have protected primitive organisms from the destructive meteorite impacts that scoured the planet's surface early in its history.
But researchers have long wondered how, if early life did form in this environment, it escaped being boiled and fried by the harsh conditions.
The Arizona State team has shown that clay minerals commonly found at vents can encase organic molecules, keeping them intact.
Between the sheets
The group simulated the vent environment in the laboratory, immersing various types of clay in pressurized water at 300 °C for several weeks and looking at the fate of a simple organic compound, methanol, in this stew. They chose methanol because their earlier work had shown that the compound could be formed in a vent environment from simple gases such as carbon dioxide and hydrogen.
Clays generally consist of sheets made of aluminium, silicon and oxygen atoms, which are stacked on top of one another. In some of these materials, such as the clays saponite and montmorillonite, there is room for other atoms and molecules to slip between the layers.
Spouting soup
The researchers found that the methanol in their artificial vent system was converted to various large organic molecules over six weeks or so, so long as the clay's layers were spaced widely enough to hold the compounds.
"The clay provides a safe haven for the organic molecules, essentially like a 'primordial womb'," the team reports. Eventually, changes in the clay's mineral structure caused by heat, pressure and time may cause the sheets to close up and expel the molecules inside. But they think that some of these could spout out from the clay into less hostile environments than the hottest part of the vent, creating an organic soup in which life might arise.
These findings add weight to the idea that clays were the key to the origin of life. Previous research has shown that clays act as catalysts for the formation of polymer molecules such as the precursors of proteins and DNA. They can also encourage lipid molecules to arrange themselves into cell-like compartments called vesicles.
Perhaps we should form a 60s club.
Ever try eating one??? Might not technically be bones but there are an awful lot of 'em!
"60s club"
Sounds good but I'd graduate pretty fast.
Geezers club?
ping
I've always found something else on the menu more attractive. Where I live gator tail is on the menu at several restaurants. I've passed that up also.
Hey, it's a whole decade.
"Where I live gator tail is on the menu at several restaurants. "
Don't. It's very good. I'm assuming that they're breading and frying it. Delicious!
"Perhaps we should form a 60s club."
I'd rather forget it, to tell you the truth. [grin]
My Clay is Aiken!
Oh NO!
Mr. Bill!
Translation:
A miracle occurs.....
Amen to that tagline!
They never will accept it. They're a group of people who believe they are the personal recipients of all truth. Hence truth isn't objective. If truth is objective, you can be wrong about it and evidence exposes the error.
Glad you read my posts and things are clear. I had just now signed on to answer you and I am glad I did not need to jump ugly...I hate when that happens.
Have a wonderful weekend. Mine will be spent raking up the fallen detritus of deciduous trees.
Me too!
Joshua 24:15-16
15 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."
Sorry, but it DEMONSTRATES nothing.
It just CLAIMS that it does.
If this be Science: replicate it!
Where did the SEEDS come from?
Who did the SEEDING?
If a person is NOT stripped of their reading comprehension, it tells a story of GOD who creates with a Word.
Not for me.
Think...I said I was reading about science 60 years ago. ;->
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