[meteorite-list] Life on Earth 'Began on a Radioactive Beach'

From: Göran Axelsson <axelsson_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:24:49 +0100
Message-ID: <4790A8A1.5010206_at_acc.umu.se>

If there were a lot of radioactive beaches then it would appear in a
number of deposits as depleted uranium. As far as I know the only place
that depleted uranium have been found is in Oklo, Gabon.
http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0010.shtml

An ore with depleted levels of uranium would add some credibility to
that theory but right now I only see it as a highly unlikely event and
in best case only a minor contributor to the primordial soup.

Other sources of building blocks as carbonaceous meteorites and
lightning strikes in an methane atmosphere is so much bigger than the
effect from a 5kW nuclear reactor. (I don't remember exact effect but it
wasn't high.)

/G?ran

Charles Viau wrote:
> Interesting, however most CC's we have studied, especially Allende and
> Murchison are loaded with these complex molecules (amino acids). The planet
> was pelted with CC's long before there were any oceans and then when oceans
> did form, those complex molecules would have been dissolved into the ocean
> readily. The 'radioactive beach' effect seems miniscule considering how
> much of the basic building blocks of life were already steeping in the
> primordial soup.
> Yes? No?
> CharlyV
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
> [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Ron Baalke
> Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 9:00 PM
> To: Meteorite Mailing List
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Life on Earth 'Began on a Radioactive Beach'
>
>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/20
> 08/01/09/scibeach109.xml
>
> Life on Earth 'began on a radioactive beach'
> By Nic Fleming
> The Telegraph (United Kingdom)
> January 9, 2008
>
> Life on Earth began on a radioactive beach, a scientist claimed today.
>
> According to computer models, deposits could collect at a beach's high
> tide mark in sufficient quantity to trigger fission reactions
>
> The sifting and collection of radioactive material by powerful tides
> could have generated the complex molecules that led to the evolution of
> carbon-based life forms - including plants, animals and humans.
>
> While radiation may seem an unlikely candidate to kick-start life
> because it breaks chemical bonds and splits large molecules, it also
> crucially provides chemical energy needed to generate some of the basic
> building blocks of life.
>
> Zachary Adam, an astrobiologist at the University of Washington in
> Seattle, has suggested the collection of radioactive material on a beach
> as a new theory for the origins of life - to be added to the existing
> long and varied list of hypotheses.
>
> One is its emergence from a "primordial soup" of simple organic
> chemicals accumulated on the surface of bodies of water within the
> hydrogen-rich early atmosphere - formulated in the 1920's by English
> geneticist J. B. S. Haldane and Russian biochemist Alexander Oparin.
>
> Others include early life forming in inorganic clay, the initial energy
> coming not from chemical reactions but from sunlight or lightening and
> the arrival of microscopic seeds of terrestrial life on chunks of
> meteorites or comets, and the intervention of a divine, intelligent
> designer.
>
> In work highlighted in this week's New Scientist magazine, Mr Adam
> suggests the more powerful tides generated by the moon's closer orbit
> billions of years ago compared to today could have sorted radioactive
> material from other sediment.
>
> According to his computer models, deposits could collect at a beach's
> high tide mark in sufficient quantity to trigger the self-sustaining
> fission reactions - as occur in natural seams of uranium.
>
> Mr Adam demonstrated in laboratory experiments that such a deposit could
> produce the chemical energy to generate some of the molecules in water
> which produce amino acids and sugars - key building blocks of life -
> when irradiated.
>
> A deposit of a radioactive material called monazite would also release
> soluble phosphate, another important ingredient for life, into the gaps
> between sand grains - making it accessible to react in water.
>
> Mr Adam told the New Scientist: "Amino acids, sugars and [soluble]
> phosphate can all be produced simultaneously in a radioactive beach
> environment."
>
>
Received on Fri 18 Jan 2008 08:24:49 AM PST