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.
Well, that is the idea. If there was life on earth at the time, a smaller earth than we have at present since it collided with and absorbed with something the size of Mars, there could well be fossils on the moon. There might be nothing left of those fossils on earth, but the moon could have preserved them. Kind of interesting.
We didn't....
In fairness, it was an obvious typo; but the point was that even though I kept asking him: "how big a number do you think 1720 really is?" he didn't catch on to his OWN typo for about three days! To not notice a mistake like that, when everyone was pointing to it and dropping hints, for three days doesn't speak well of his understanding of the material he was cutting'n'pasting, nor his understanding of mathematical representations....
My guess is that science/environment/reality has a tendancy to make most of our recent and curent "proof" look simplistic as soon as someone is able to take another step.
And that's sort of what this entire debate is all about.
High level of superstitious belief due to little understanding of natural processes. Low percentage of educated general population. High illiteracy rate. High energy expenditure for simple survival.
Is that enough?
$5 Canadian? I bet all the neighborhood kids think of you as a regular Daddy Warbucks, eh? ;)
I can't imagine any fossils surviving that kind of impact, the heat would have been incredible. Just MHO though.
LOL! I think we'll let the lurkers decide. :)
I do not believe that. The sun and the moon are both the same size and direct observation proves it. The moon and the sun look to be exactly the same size. The moon is obviously smaller than the earth. The shadow of the earth completely covers the moon but the moon's shadow doesn't cover up the entire earth. There you have it. The sun is smaller than the earth.
Thank you, Ptolemy.
:-P
Its not how much the Canuck Buck is worth compared to the the US buck, but how much that buck will buy. I can buy a rather nice 1200 sq. ft. new home for about $120,000 C. Of course the main problem we have up here in the Great White North is melt damage during the 3 week long summer. I frequently have to replace a good 5% of the snow blocks on the south side of my house.
Genesis one isn't about sequences. The sacred writers purposefully placed stumbling blocks in the writing to take certain ideas off the table.
That's interesting. I never heard anyone say Genesis was a puzzle. It's been taken literally, and as an allegory, but as a puzzle? /p>
Yeah, those sizzling Canadian summers can really ruin a good snow block. I hear that during such scorchers, the walrus blubber stored in the cellar can get ruined.
But I thought that is what most Evo's here think of C's and IDer's
Maybe the DeltaV wasn't that great....
That used to be quite true, up until the time we started using freezers.
I can still remember as a youngster trying to keep the dogs from digging under the house to get to the blubber. Fond memories indeed.
Well....
DaVinci has been stated as.........
Hey, you gotta protect that blubber.
I think most Evos here believe Cs and IDers have a bad case of Morton's Demon.
Energy crisis? What energy crisis?
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