The Hydrothermal Source of Energy and Materials at the Origin of Life
Abstract
The case is presented that chemosynthetic life emerged at the growing exterior of a submarine hydrothermal mound generated where effluent from an alkaline hydrothermal convection cell interfaced a mildly acidic ocean across a precipitated membrane over 4 billion years ago. At first a small portion of the carbonic ocean water entrained in the submarine convection cell feeding the mound was reduced at very slow rates to acetate and methane. Deposits of porous iron-nickel sulfides, freshly precipitated in the mound, further catalyzed these reactions. At the same time, amino acids and peptides, generated in this milieu from hydrothermal hydrogen, ammonia and carbon dioxide, were retained in the mound's pores. These peptides then sequestered the ironnickel sulfide clusters to produce protoenzymes that further 'quickened' the acetate and methane reactions. RNAs generated in the system then took over a catalytic and coding role to help drive the emergence of the first microbes—the acetogens and the methanogens, which evolved into the first bacteria and archaea respectively.
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Hydrothermal systems have advantages including pH, temperature, and ionic concentration gradients that could harness proton and redox gradients to produce chemiosmotic energy, a free-energy source that could eventually be used by earliest biochemical systems.
“Other advantages of hydrothermal systems (sensu largo) include pH, temperature, and ionic concentrations gradients that could harness proton and redox gradients to produce chemiosmotic energy, a free-energy source that could eventually be used by the earliest biochemical systems (Russell andHall 1997, 2009;Russell et al. 2010;Westall et al. 2018).”
From The Emergence of Life (2019) · cites this paper as Russell and Hall 2009
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“…include pH, temperature, and ionic concentrations gradients that could harness proton and redox gradients to produce chemiosmotic energy, a free-energy source that could eventually be used by the earliest biochemical systems (Russell and Hall 1997, 2009; Russell et al. 2010; Westall et al. 2018).”
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- Authors
- Russell, M. J., & Hall, A. J.
- Affiliations
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- University of Glasgow (GB)
- ORCID
- Russell, Michael J.
- Venue
- ACS Symposium Series
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society
- Published
- 2009-12-20
- Pages
- 45-62
- ISSN
- 0097-6156 (ISSN-L)
- 1947-5918
- OpenAlex
- W651363305
- Cited by
- 17
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2024: 2 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 4 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 3.88
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- ACS symposium series (publishedVersion)
- ENLIGHTEN (Jurnal Bimbingan dan Konseling Islam) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Origins and Evolution of Life
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Geochemistry and Petrology › Geochemistry and Elemental Analysis
- Keywords
- origin of life, hydrothermal vents, chemosynthesis, acetogenesis, methanogenesis, iron-nickel sulfide, catalysis, RNA catalysis, acetogenic bacteria, methanogenic archaea, archaea, bacteria
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