Affiliation:
1. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
Abstract
The emergence of life on Earth (and elsewhere) must have occurred in a milieu that is far from equilibrium, such as at alkaline hydrothermal vents that would have harboured built-in gradients in temperature, redox potential and pH along with precipitated iron-bearing minerals capable of separating these gradients, concentrating reactants and catalysing requisite protobiotic reactions. Iron-bearing minerals such as mackinawite, greenalite and fougèrite have been investigated as catalysts for protobiotic reactions, including amino acid synthesis. In the field of heterogeneous catalysis, it is well known that defect sites in the crystal structure are often the most active sites for catalysis, and mineral catalysts that have been exposed to ionizing radiation are known to exhibit increased reactivity due to radiation-induced defect sites. In this work, we (i) review the literature on the radioactive environment of the Hadean era, (ii) highlight the role of radionuclide ionizing radiation from
238
U,
232
Th and
40
K in generating defect sites with high catalytic activity for the chemical evolution of organic molecules, and (iii) hypothesize that these processes accelerated the emergence of life.
Funder
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Subject
Biomedical Engineering,Biomaterials,Biochemistry,Bioengineering,Biophysics,Biotechnology
Cited by
3 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献