Abstract
Mineral vesicles and chemical gardens are self-organized biomimetic structures that form via abiotic mineral precipitation. These membranous structures are known to catalyze prebiotic reactions but the extreme conditions required for their synthesis has cast doubts on their formation in nature. Apart from model solutions, these structures have been shown to form in serpentinization-driven natural silica-rich water and by fluid-rock interaction of model alkaline solutions with granites. Here, for the first time, we demonstrate that self-assembled hollow mineral vesicles and gardens can be synthesized in natural carbonate-rich soda lake water. We have synthesized these structures by a) pouring saturated metal salt solutions, and b) by immersing metal salt pellets in brines collected from Lake Magadi (Kenya). The resulting structures are analyzed by using SEM coupled with EDX analysis, Raman spectroscopy, and powder X-ray diffraction. Our results suggest that mineral self-assembly could have been a common phenomenon in soda oceans of early Earth and Earth-like planets and moons. The composition of the obtained vesicles and gardens confirms the recent observation that carbonate minerals in soda lakes sequestrate Ca, thus leaving phosphate behind in solution available for biochemical reactions. Our results strengthens the proposal that alkaline brines could be ideal sites for “one-pot” synthesis of prebiotic organic compounds and the origin of life.
Highlights
Mineral self-organization is an important subject for understanding pattern formation in Earth and Materials Sciences [1]
Under these geochemical conditions of Hadean Earth, it is thought that mineral membranous structures, and silica/carbonate biomorphs were forming in the alkaline oceans, rich in silica and/or carbonate
Here we present the macroscopic growth of mineral gardens and Co, Mg, Zn and Fe (II) vesicles to demonstrate the range of mineral self-organization that might form in soda lakes
Summary
Mineral self-organization is an important subject for understanding pattern formation in Earth and Materials Sciences [1]. Among the different self-organized patterns [2], chemical gardens, silica-induced self-organized structures, are thought to be relevant for the earliest stages of the planet, when alkaline silica-rich oceans evolved from methane-rich to CO and CO2 -rich atmosphere and hydrosphere [3]. Under these geochemical conditions of Hadean Earth, it is thought that mineral membranous structures (mineral gardens), and silica/carbonate biomorphs were forming in the alkaline oceans, rich in silica and/or carbonate. It has been shown that the space-compartmentalized silica membranes are small batteries [6] that selectively catalyze the synthesis of prebiotically relevant compounds such as carboxylic acids, amino acids, and nucleobases in the presence of formamide [7].
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