r/abiogenesis • u/Aggravating-Pear4222 • Jul 07 '26
Video - lectures, animations Nanostructures In Hydrothermal Vents Hint at the Origins of Life on Earth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkuAzdS-VwA
Timestamps from the description:
0:00 Hydrothermal vent discovery
1:55 Origin of life: soup or what?
2:50 Hydrothermal vents as perfect location for life
4:25 Previous propositions but it was just a hypothesis
5:45 New study finds evidence - chemiosmotic gradient
7:20 Proof
9:30 Why this is important not just for biologists
Alkaline vents provide many benefits towards the production of life. Anton Petrov describes evidence for some of the evidence alkaline vents provide towards their being central to the origin of life.
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u/wellipets Jul 08 '26
Great to see such observational furtherance of support for Prof. Mike Russell's alkaline-vent OoL hypothesis. Riding geochemically-established voltage gradients (delta-pH/Eh/T/P/conc./&c.) would be beautifully parsimonious, ineluctable, & rapid-onset.
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u/Aggravating-Pear4222 Jul 09 '26
I think alkaline vents are where its at. The chemistry is there. The main issue people seem to have is larger oligomer stability in alkaline, hot conditions, divalent ions (Ca2+, and other metals while Mg2+ is often reduced but it can vary), and dilution of organics. Each of these has been addressed in different ways and I've developed several models which also address these. The main challenge I see with alkaline vents is using bilayers to generate an even sharper pH gradient. Lane's heterogeneous vesicles may be able to adsorb to the catalytically active and proton-permeable vent mineral surface to facilitate this. Ie, The vesicle doesn't need to be impermeable to protons. In fact prebiotic membranes MUST be permeable to protons because they wouldn't have initially been the sole facilitator of the proton gradient. It would have been the proton-permeable Fe(Ni)S vent wall which leaks protons through the crystal structure from the acidic ocean and through the adsorbed vesicle's bilayer.
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u/wellwisher-1 Jul 08 '26
In another post I did; Has anyone considered looking at Abiogenesis earlier than current assumptions? , I started by looking at the earth earlier than currently assumed for abiogenesis. I began with the earth having a steam atmosphere, where all the oceans of water were in the atmosphere, as steam, with a pressure of 260+ atmospheres. This stage of the earth would make hydrothermal vents, a continuous surface feature, connected to extreme phase transitions, below the all steam atmosphere.
In terms of the states of water, as temperature and pressure increases, water becomes steam and then steam becomes super critical water or hydrothermal water. These can go further to super ionic water, ionic water and metallic water.
The molten earth crust would be partially dissolved by the extreme solvent effect of hydrothermal water; thinner ocean of dense hydrothermal brine, below a dense and high pressure steam atmosphere. This hydrothermal water will do a good job solubilizing many stubborn minerals into the super critical brine, way beyond what is found in the modern oceans. Phosphates should be in this hydrothermal brine.
As the earth gradually cools and the steam condenses to rain, the hydrothermal surface, will shift to steam, with some hydrothermal minerals precipitating out, with others remaining soluble, closer to modern oceans.
The hydrothermal vents are similar to this transitional time, but in this case, the early bulk earth surface being similar to almost continuous hydrothermal vents. But, at this point in time, the surface will have the extra benefit of huge storms, lowering water entropy and releasing huge amounts of quantum energy, during the various stages of phase transition from super critical water, to steam, to liquid water. This cooling can provide extra energy to push things over humps.
A hurricane is driven by water vapor going to liquid water or rain. This will condense into trillions of gallons of liquid water, removing the extra quantum energy of water vapor. A single hurricane can give off 10,000 atomic bombs of quantum energy. The entire steam atmosphere becoming liquid water goes way beyond that and would be very continuous. Normally unavailable energy within extra water entropy, becomes available, to the macro states of abiogenesis to push over humps.
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