Shen Hai Yong Shi on the TS-10 expedition.
Researchers have confirmed the absence of living molecules in carbonaceous matter in a region where there is ideal material and energy for prebiotic chemical reactions.
Chinese scientists have found, in the depths of the sea in the Indian Ridge, organic compounds that may reveal how life was organized at the beginning of Earth’s history: they are complex processes that involve the transformation of “dead” materialbut organic, by chemical means until the formation of living beings.
The was based on a previous study, from 2021, in which abiotic (i.e. lifeless) organic matter on the tiny nanometer scale was identified in the Yap Trench, in the Pacific Ocean.
The team of scientists, led by Nan Jingbofrom the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS), worked on ideas that derive from the potential of underwater vent hydrothermal systems in generating life. In these locations, there are ideal material and energy for prebiotic chemical reactions (which gave rise to life) of the early Earth.
To create more complex organic compounds, it is necessary that, in the past, the catalyzation of minerals by polymerization reactions (the process of forming molecules that creates carbohydrates and proteins, for example) was possible. This would have allowed, according to the October study in PNAS, the evolution of simple organic compounds into complex functional structures, generating life.
To carry out the investigation, scientists sent a manned vehicle nicknamed Shen Hai Yong Shi on the expedition TS-10. They found abiotic matter on the micrometer scale in the oceanic crust of the Southwest Indian Ridge and noticed a connection between organic matter and the product of interactions between water and deep rock, with emphasis on goethite.
Using various spectroscopy, spectrometry and microscopy techniques, researchers then confirmed the absence of living molecules in the carbonaceous matter of the regionthus proving that the origin of the molecules was, in fact, abiotic, that is, it came from “dead” material.
Based on this discovery, the crucial role of goethite in the synthesis of local carbonic matter was calculated. Abiotic carbonaceous matter is a “natural laboratory” at mid-ocean ridges, which allows organic matter-forming reactions to occur.
Discovering such processes helps scientists understand how life may have originated on planet Earth, but it can also help discover organic matter on other rocky planets.
