Animatronic dinos from Lantzville bound for Alberta town

The town is hoping that the dinos, which will likely go into local parks and playgrounds for now, will put Wembley on the tourism map

Carla Wilson
May 26, 2023 

A parasaurolophus animatronic dinosaur from Stan Pottie's collection in Lantzville. VIA ABLE AUCTIONS

A group of animatronic ­dinosaurs from Lantzville is heading to the small northwest Alberta community of ­Wembley, home of the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum.

The town has purchased six dinosaur-related items formerly owned by Stan Pottie, whose collection was sold online through Able Auctions on Thursday.

Noreen Zhang, chief administrative officer of Wembley, which had a population of 1,432 in 2021, said it was “amazing” to be able to buy the dinosaurs.

Town council is hoping the collection will put Wembley on the tourism map, she said, noting that in addition to the dinosaur museum, it has a rich dinosaur bone bed. “Council is supportive of actually being able to bring dinosaurs into the community.”

The goal is to rebrand the community with a dinosaur theme, said Zhang, who declined to say how much the town spent for the collection.

The town will be developing a dinosaur master plan that will include finding a place to display the new acquisitions, she said.

In the meantime, they’re expected to go into local parks and playgrounds.

Alberta residents have watched as the Royal ­Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, ­northeast of Calgary, has become an international draw.

But the Wembley area is also a destination for dinosaur research and hunting for ­dinosaur bones.

The town bought an animatronic triceratops, a bench in the ­likeness of a triceratops, an animatronic parasaurolophus, a baby dinosaur hand puppet, a ride-on dinosaur, and a garbage can in the shape of a dinosaur.

Pottie’s dinosaurs went to ­auction after he lost a 2021 court battle with the District of ­Lantzville, which had maintained that his dinosaur park was illegal because the property is zoned for residential use only.

Brett Johnston, Able ­Auctions’ Vancouver Island ­manager, did not reveal how much individual items sold for or the total amount.

cjwilson@timescolonist.com

New Triassic Dicynodont Species Discovered in Poland

May 31, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have identified a new genus and species of kannemeyeriiform dicynodont from the Triassic-period fossilized remains found in Poland.

Life reconstruction of Woznikella triradiata, a medium-sized dicynodont from the Triassic of Poland. Image credit: Sci.News / DrawingDinosaurs / Henryk Niestrój.

Woznikella triradiata lived in what is now Poland and Germany during the Late Triassic epoch, around 230 million years ago.

The new species was a type of dicynodont, a group of primarily herbivorous vertebrates that were common during the Permian and Triassic periods.

The ancient creature was closely related to Stahleckeriidae, a family of Late Triassic dicynodonts within the clade Kannemeyeriiformes.

“Dicynodonts were an important clade of herbivorous therapsids, which originated in the Permian and vanished in the latest Triassic,” said Polish Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Paleobiology researchers Tomasz Szczygielski and Tomasz Sulej.

“During their roughly 60 million years of existence, they were an unquestionable evolutionary success, as expressed by their global geographical range, generic and specific diversity, and exceptionally high relative abundance — not once, but twice: first in the Permian, and then, after a major faunistic turnover, in the Triassic.”

“In the Triassic, this clade ranged from miniscule animals less than half a meter long to massive species comparable in size to the largest living terrestrial mammals.”

“The diversity, evolutionary trends, and geographic and temporal distribution of Triassic dicynodonts have been the subject of extensive research. However, due to dynamic progress in the understanding of dicynodont phylogeny and biostratigraphy, as well as numerous new discoveries and taxonomic revisions performed in recent years, many of these studies are now outdated.”

The fossilized partial skeleton of Woznikella triradiata was found at a locality near the town of Woźniki in southern Poland.

“It seems that dicynodonts comprised the main group of large herbivores in the Late Triassic of Poland,” the paleontologists said.

“No unambiguous body fossils of sauropodomorph dinosaurs have been found in any of the Polish Triassic localities, in stark contrast to, e.g., Germany or Greenland, where sauropodomorphs are abundant and dicynodonts virtually absent.”

“The ichnological record, however, does indicate that at least some sauropodomorphs were present in the Late Triassic of Poland. Unlike in the Americas and Africa, no Late Triassic tracks referable to dicynodonts are known from Europe, with the exception of two specimens from Woźniki, two or three specimens from Zawiercie, Poland, and some putative therapsid tracks from France.”

In addition to the description of Woznikella triradiata, the researchers analyzed the biogeography of the Permian and Triassic dicynodonts.

According to their results, the region of southeastern Africa — Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia — throughout the Permian and Triassic served as a hotspot of dicynodont diversity and origin point for lineages migrating north and west.

“Multiple species independently migrated to the Americas and Eurasia, indicating open passages between the regions of southern and northern hemisphere,” they said.

“Southern migrations from the northern hemisphere appear to be very rare, however.”

The team’s work appears in the Comptes Rendus Palevol, a fast track journal published by the Museum Science Press, Paris and the Académie des sciences, Paris.

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T. Szczygielski & T. Sulej. 2023. Woznikella triradiata n.gen., n.sp. – a new kannemeyeriiform dicynodont from the Late Triassic of northern Pangea and the global distribution of Triassic dicynodonts. Comptes Rendus Palevol 22 (16): 279-406; doi: 10.5852/cr-palevol2023v22a16

 

Ancient DNA Sheds New Light on Human Evolution during Out-of-Africa Migration

May 24, 2023 by News Staff

The dispersal of anatomically modern Homo sapiens out of Africa and across Eurasia provides a unique opportunity to examine the impacts of genetic selection as our species adapted to multiple new environments. An analysis of ancient (1,000 to 45,000 years old) Eurasian genomic datasets reveals signatures of strong selection, including at least 57 hard sweeps after the initial human movement out of Africa, which have been obscured in modern populations by extensive admixture during the Holocene. In new research, scientists identified a previously unsuspected extended period of genetic adaptation lasting around 30,000 years, potentially in the Arabian Peninsula area, prior to a major Neanderthal genetic introgression and subsequent rapid dispersal across Eurasia as far as Australia.

Evolutionary changes that helped our early ancestors survive the first migration out of Africa could hold important clues for modern medicine. Image credit: sjs.org / CC BY-SA 3.0.

“Ancient human genomes make it possible to recover key events in the evolution of our species that are essentially hidden from modern human genomes,” said Dr. Raymond Tobler, a researcher at the Australian National University.

“We suspect the ’Arabian Standstill’ period was a pivotal point in our evolutionary history, during which the ancestors of all non-African humans underwent extensive genetic adaptation to colder environments, effectively preparing them for the cool Eurasian environments they would eventually encounter.”

In their research, Dr. Tobler and his colleagues used ancient human genomes to reconstruct historical adaptation during the poorly understood out-of-Africa diaspora.

They found specific genetic patterns that pointed to a series of natural selection events dating back 80,000 years.

These patterns suggest the ancestors of modern humans living outside of Africa experienced an extended period of genetic isolation and adaptation, possibly around the Arabian Peninsula, prior to their worldwide dispersal 50,000 years ago.

“These ancient adaptive genes share striking functional similarities with selected genes found in human and mammalian populations currently living in the Arctic,” said Garvan Institute’s Professor Shane Grey.

The authors propose a connection between genetic selection and human migration during the Eurasian Paleolithic period, suggesting that the speed of movement was influenced not only by climatic cycles but also by the need to adapt to new environments.

“While crucial for survival at the time, these adaptive genes are associated with obesity, diabetes, and neurodegenerative disease in contemporary populations,” said Dr. Yassine Souilmi, a researcher at the University of Adelaide and the Australian National University.

“Our study not only improves our understanding of human evolution, but the link between adaptation and modern disease could expedite the development of therapeutic and preventive measures by prioritizing medical research on previously selected genes.”

The study appears online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Raymond Tobler et al. 2023. The role of genetic selection and climatic factors in the dispersal of anatomically modern humans out of Africa. PNAS 120 (22): e2213061120; doi: 10.1073/pnas.2213061120

153,000-Year-Old Homo sapiens Footprint Discovered in South Africa

May 26, 2023 by Sergio Prostak

The 153,000-year-old footprint, which was found in the Garden Route National Park, a national park in the Garden Route region of the South African Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces, is the oldest footprint thus far attributed to our species, Homo sapiens.

The 153,000-year-old footprint, lightly ringed with chalk, in the Garden Route National Park, South Africa; it appears long and narrow because the trackmaker dragged their heel. Image credit: Charles Helm.

“Just over two decades ago, as the new millennium began, it seemed that tracks left by our ancient human ancestors dating back more than about 50,000 years were excessively rare,” Nelson Mandela University researcher Charles Helm and his colleagues told The Conversation.

“Only four sites had been reported in the whole of Africa at that time: Laetoli in Tanzania, Koobi Fora in Kenya, and Nahoon and Langebaan sites in South Africa.”

“Today, the African tally for dated hominin ichnosites — a term that includes both tracks and other traces — older than 50,000 years stands at 14.”

“These can conveniently be divided into an East African cluster (five sites) and a South African cluster from the Cape coast (nine sites).”

The researchers used a technique called optically stimulated luminescence to estimate the age of seven hominin ichnosites from the South African cluster on the Cape south coast.

“The Cape south coast is a great place to apply optically stimulated luminescence,” they explained.

“Firstly, the sediments are rich in quartz grains, which produce lots of luminescence.”

“Secondly, the abundant sunshine, wide beaches and ready wind transport of sand to form coastal dunes mean any pre-existing luminescence signals are fully removed prior to the burial event of interest, making for reliable age estimates.”

“This method has underpinned much of the dating of previous finds in the area.”

Incipient cementation in a Holocene dune near Still Bay, South Africa. Image credit: Helm et al., doi: 10.1080/10420940.2023.2204231.

They found that the South African ichnosites ranged in age; the most recent dates back about 71,000 years.

The oldest, which dates back 153,000 years, is one of the more remarkable finds recorded by the team.

It is the oldest footprint thus far attributed to anatomically modern Homo sapiens.

“There are significant differences between the East African and South African tracksite clusters,” the authors said.

“The East African sites are much older: Laetoli, the oldest, is 3.66 million years old and the youngest is 700,000 years old. The tracks were not made by Homo sapiens, but by earlier species such as australopithecines, Homo heidelbergensis and Homo erectus.”

“The South African sites on the Cape coast, by contrast, are substantially younger. All have been attributed to Homo sapiens.”

The team’s work was published in the Ichnos, an International Journal of Plant and Animal Traces.

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Charles W. Helm et al. Dating the Pleistocene hominin ichnosites on South Africa’s Cape south coast. Ichnos, published online April 25, 2023; doi: 10.1080/10420940.2023.2204231

 

Queen Hetepheres’ Silver Bracelets Shed Light on Trade Networks in Ancient Egypt

May 30, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Egypt has no domestic silver ore sources and silver is rarely found in the Egyptian archaeological record until the Middle Bronze Age. Bracelets found in the tomb of queen Hetepheres I — mother of king Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid at Giza (date of reign 2589-2566 BCE) — form the largest and most famous collection of silver artifacts from early Egypt. In new research, scientists from Macquarie University and elsewhere analyzed samples from queen Hetepheres’ bracelets using several state-of-the-art techniques to understand the nature and metallurgical treatment of the metal and identify the possible ore source. Their results indicate that the silver was most likely obtained from the Cyclades (Seriphos, Anafi, or Kea-Kithnos) or perhaps the Lavrion mines in Attica. It excludes Anatolia as the source with a fair degree of certainty. This new finding demonstrates, for the first time, the potential geographical extent of commodity procurement networks utilized by the Egyptian state during the early Old Kingdom at the height of the Pyramid-building age.

Two silver bracelets of queen Hetepheres. Image credit: Sowada et al., doi: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2023.103978.

Silver artifacts first appeared in Egypt during the 4th millennium BCE but the original source then, and in the 3rd millennium, is unknown.

Ancient Egyptian texts don’t mention any local sources, but an older view, derived from the presence of gold in silver objects, plus the high silver content of Egyptian gold and electrum, holds that silver was derived from local sources.

An alternative view is that silver was imported to Egypt, possibly via Byblos on the Lebanese coast, owing to many silver objects found in Byblos tombs from the late fourth millennium.

The tomb of queen Hetepheres I was discovered at Giza in 1925 by the Harvard University-Museum of Fine Arts joint expedition.

Hetepheres was one of Egypt’s most important queens: wife of 4th Dynasty king Sneferu and mother of Khufu, the greatest builders of the Old Kingdom (c. 2686-2180 BCE).

Her intact sepulchre is the richest known from the period, with many treasures including gilded furniture, gold vessels and jewelry.

Made of a metal rare to Egypt, her bracelets were found surrounded by the remains of a wooden box covered with gold sheeting, bearing the hieroglyphic inscription ‘Box containing deben-rings.’

Twenty deben-rings or bracelets were originally interred, one set of ten for each limb, originally packed inside the box.

The thin metal worked into a crescent shape and the use of turquoise, lapis lazuli and carnelian inlay, stylistically mark the bracelets as made in Egypt and not elsewhere.

Each ring is of diminishing size, made from a thin metal sheet formed around a convex core, creating a hollow cavity on the underside

Depressions impressed into the exterior received stone inlays forming the shape of butterflies.

At least four insects are depicted on each bracelet, rendered using small pieces of turquoise, carnelian and lapis lazuli, with each butterfly separated by a circular piece of carnelian.

In several places, pieces of real lapis have been substituted by painted plaster.

“The origin of silver used for artifacts during the third millennium has remained a mystery until now,” said Dr. Karin Sowada, an archaeologist at Macquarie University.

“The new finding demonstrates, for the first time, the potential geographical extent of trade networks used by the Egyptian state during the early Old Kingdom at the height of the Pyramid-building age.”

Dr. Sowada and colleagues found that queen Hetepheres’ bracelets consist of silver with trace copper, gold, lead and other elements.

The minerals are silver, silver chloride and a possible trace of copper chloride.

Surprisingly, the lead isotope ratios are consistent with ores from the Cyclades (Aegean islands, Greece), and to a lesser extent from Lavrion (Attica, Greece), and not partitioned from gold or electrum as previously surmised.

The silver was likely acquired through the port of Byblos on the Lebanese coast and is the earliest attestation of long-distance exchange activity between Egypt and Greece.

The analysis also revealed the methods of early Egyptian silver working for the first time.

“Samples were analysed from the collection in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the scanning electron microscope images show that the bracelets were made by hammering cold-worked metal with frequent annealing to prevent breakage,” said Professor Damian Gore, an archaeologist at Macquarie University.

“The bracelets were also likely to have been alloyed with gold to improve their appearance and ability to be shaped during manufacture.”

“The rarity of these objects is threefold: surviving royal burial deposits from this period are rare; only small quantities of silver survived in the archaeological record until the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1900 BCE); and Egypt lacks substantive silver ore deposits,” Dr. Sowada said.

The findings were published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

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Karin Sowada et al. 2023. Analyses of queen Hetepheres’ bracelets from her celebrated tomb in Giza reveals new information on silver, metallurgy and trade in Old Kingdom Egypt, c. 2600 BC. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 49: 103978; doi: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2023.103978

Iron-Rich Meteoritic and Volcanic Particles May Have Promoted Origin of Life Reactions on Early Earth

May 26, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Precursors of the molecules needed for the origin of life may have been generated by chemical reactions promoted by meteoritic and volcanic particles approximately 4.4 billion years ago, says a team of researchers led by Professor Oliver Trapp from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

An artist’s impression of the Hadean Earth: huge, impact-generated lava lakes coexisted with surface liquid water, under a thick greenhouse atmosphere sustained by lava outgassing. Image credit: Simone Marchi & Dan Durda, Southwest Research Institute.

“The formation of reactive organic molecules to form the building blocks of life on the nascent Earth is one of the prerequisites for abiogenesis,” Professor Trapp and colleagues said.

“The emergence of a stable continental crust and liquid water on the Earth at 4.4 billion years ago, and the earliest biogenic carbon isotope signatures at 3.8-4.1 billion years ago suggest that life originated only 400-700 million years after the formation of the Earth.”

"This relatively short time span indicates that the major part of organic precursors has been already formed on the Hadean Earth as early as 4.4 billion years ago.”

“One possibility is that the prebiotic organic constituents that had been formed in the solar nebula, carbon-rich asteroids, and comets have been delivered onto the early Earth,” they said.

“Other theories consider the synthesis in the atmosphere and in the ocean by catalytic or high energy processes (lightning, volcanic energy, impact shocks).”

Formation of prebiotic key organic matter from carbon dioxide by catalysis with meteoritic and volcanic particles. Image credit: Peters et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-33741-8.

In their study, the authors investigated whether meteorite or ash particles deposited on volcanic islands could have promoted the conversion of atmospheric carbon dioxide to the precursors of organic molecules on the early Earth.

They simulated a range of conditions that previous research has suggested may have been present on the early Earth by placing carbon dioxide gas in a heated and pressurized system — an autoclave — under pressures ranging between 9 and 45 bars and temperatures between 150 and 300 degrees Celsius.

They also simulated wet and dry climate conditions by adding either hydrogen gas or water to the system.

They mimicked the depositing of meteorite or ash particles on volcanic islands by adding different combinations of crushed samples of iron meteorites, stony meteorites, or volcanic ash into the system, as well as minerals that may have been present in the early Earth and are found in either the Earth’s crust, meteorites, or asteroids.

The scientists found that the iron-rich particles from meteorites and volcanic ash promoted the conversion of carbon dioxide into hydrocarbons, aldehydes and alcohols across a range of atmosphere and climate conditions that may have been present in the early Earth.

They observed that aldehydes and alcohols formed at lower temperatures while hydrocarbons formed at 300 degrees Celsius.

“As the early Earth’s atmosphere cooled over time, the production of alcohols and aldehydes may have increased,” they said.

“These compounds may then have participated in further reactions that could have led to the formation of carbohydrates, lipids, sugars, amino acids, DNA, and RNA.”

“By calculating the rate of the reactions they observed and using data from previous research on the conditions of the early Earth, we estimate that their proposed mechanism could have synthesized up to 600,000 tons of organic precursors per year across the early Earth.”

“Their mechanism may have contributed to the origins of life on Earth, in combination with other reactions in the early Earth’s atmosphere and oceans.”

The findings appear in the journal Scientific Reports.

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S. Peters et al. 2023. Synthesis of prebiotic organics from CO2 by catalysis with meteoritic and volcanic particles. Sci Rep 13, 6843; doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-33741-8

A role for meteoritic iron in the emergence of life on Earth

by Max Planck Society

A small fragment of the Campo del Cielo iron meteorite. The same intense heat that partially 

the meteorite to produce the smooth surface visible here would have also evaporated and 

ablated iron, creating tiny, nanometer-sized particles. These particles could have acted as

 catalysts for producing the building blocks of life on the early Earth. Credit: O. Trapp

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and Ludwig Maximilians University Munich have proposed a new scenario for the emergence of the first building blocks for life on Earth, roughly 4 billion years ago.

By experiment, they showed how iron particles from meteors and from volcanic ash could have served as catalysts for converting a carbon-dioxide rich early atmosphere into hydrocarbons, but also acetaldehyde and formaldehyde, which in turn can serve as building blocks for fatty acids, nucleobases, sugars and amino acids. Their article, "Synthesis of prebiotic organics from CO2 by catalysis with meteoritic and volcanic particles," is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

To the best of our current knowledge, life on Earth emerged a mere 400 to 700 million years after the Earth itself had formed. That is a fairly quick development. For comparison, consider that afterwards, it took about 2 billion years for the first proper (eukaryotic) cells to form. The first step towards the emergence of life is the formation of organic molecules that can serve as building blocks for organisms. Given how fast life itself arose, it would be plausible for this comparatively simple first step to have been completed quickly, as well.

The research described here presents a new way for such organic compounds to form on planetary scales under the conditions prevalent on the early Earth. The key supporting role goes to iron particles produced from meteorites, which act as a catalyst. Catalysts are substances whose presence speeds up specific chemical reactions, but which do not get used up in those reactions. In that way, they are akin to the tools used in manufacture: Tools are necessary to produce, say, a car, but after one car is built, the tools can be used to build the next one.

From industrial chemistry to the beginnings of the Earth

Key inspiration for the research came, of all things, from industrial chemistry. Specifically, Oliver Trapp, a professor at Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, and Max Planck Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), wondered whether the so-called Fischer–Tropsch process for converting carbon monoxide and hydrogen into hydrocarbons in the presence of metallic catalysts might not have had an analog on an early Earth with a carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere.

"When I looked at the chemical composition of the Campo-del-Cielo iron meteorite, consisting of iron, nickel, some cobalt and tiny amounts of iridium, I immediately realized that this is a perfect Fischer-Tropsch catalyst," explains Trapp. The logical next step was to set up an experiment to test the cosmic version of Fischer-Tropsch.

Dmitry Semenov, a staff member at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, says, "When Oliver told me about his idea to experimentally investigate the catalytic properties of iron meteorite particles to synthesize building blocks for life, my first thought was that we should also study the catalytic properties of volcanic ash particles. After all, the early Earth should have been geologically active. There should have been plenty of fine ash particles in the atmosphere and on Earth's first land masses."

Re-creating cosmic catalysis

For their experiments, Trapp and Semenov teamed up with Trapp's Ph.D. student Sophia Peters, who would run the experiments as part of her Ph.D. work. For access to meteorites and minerals, as well as expertise in the analysis of such materials, they reached out to mineralogist Rupert Hochleitner, an expert on meteorites at the Mineralogische Staatssammlung in Munich.

The first ingredient for the experiments was always a source of iron particles. In different versions of the experiment, those iron particles might be iron from an actual iron meteorite, or particles from an iron-containing stone meteorite, or volcanic ash from Mount Etna, the latter as a stand-in for the iron-rich particles that would be present on the early Earth with its highly active volcanism. Next, the iron particles were mixed with different minerals such as might be found on the early Earth. These minerals would act as a support structure. Catalysts are commonly found as small particles on a suitable substrate.

Producing small particles

Particle size matters. The fine volcanic ash particles produced by volcanic eruptions are typically a few micrometers in size. For meteorites falling through the atmosphere of the early Earth, on the other hand, atmospheric friction would ablate nanometer-size iron particles. The impact of an iron meteorite (or of the iron core of a larger asteroid) would produce micrometer-sized iron particles directly through fragmentation, and nanometer-sized particles as iron evaporated in the intense heat and later-on condensed again in the surrounding air.

The researchers aimed to reproduce this variety of particle sizes in two different ways. By dissolving the meteoric material in acid, they produced nanometer-sized particles from their prepared material. And by putting either the meteoritic material or the volcanic ash into a ball mill for 15 minutes, the researchers could produce larger, micrometer-sized particles. Such a ball mill is a drum containing both the material and steel balls, which is rotated at high speeds, in this case more than ten times per second, with the steel balls grinding up the material.

Since Earth's initial atmosphere did not contain oxygen, the researchers then followed up with chemical reactions that would remove almost all of the oxygen from the mixture.

Producing organic molecules under pressure

As the last step in each version of the experiment, the mixture was brought into a pressure chamber filled with (mostly) carbon dioxide CO2 and (some) hydrogen molecules, chosen so as to simulate the atmosphere of the early Earth. Both the exact mixture and the pressure were varied between experiments.

The results were impressive: Thanks to the iron catalyst, organic compounds such as methanol, ethanol and acetaldehyde were produced, but also formaldehyde. That is an encouraging harvest—acetaldehyde and formaldehyde in particular are important building blocks for fatty acids, nucleobases (themselves the building blocks of DNA), sugars and amino acids.

Importantly, these reactions took place successfully under a variety of pressure and temperature conditions. Sophia Peters says, "Since there are many different possibilities for the properties of the early Earth, I tried to experimentally test every possible scenario. In the end, I used fifty different catalysts, and ran the experiment at various values for the pressure, the temperature, and the ratio of carbon dioxide and hydrogen molecules." That the organic molecules formed under such a variety of condition is a strong indication that reactions like these could have taken place on the early Earth—whatever its precise atmospheric conditions will turn out to be.

Adding a scenario to the portfolio of possible mechanisms

With these results, there is now a new contender for how the first building blocks of life were formed on Earth. Joining the ranks of "classic" mechanisms such as organic synthesis near hot vents on the ocean floor, or electric discharge in a methane-rich atmosphere (as in the Urey-Miller experiment), and of models that predict how organic compounds could have formed in the depth of space and transported to Earth by asteroids or comets (see this MPIA press release), there is now another possibility: meteoric iron particles or fine volcanic ash acting as catalysts in an early, carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere.

With this spread of possibilities, learning more about the atmospheric composition and physical properties of the early Earth should allow researchers to deduce, eventually, which of the various mechanisms will give the highest yield of building blocks under the given conditions—and which thus was likely the most important mechanism for the first steps from non-life to life on our home planet.

More information: Synthesis of prebiotic organics from CO2 by catalysis with meteoritic and volcanic particles, Scientific Reports (2023). www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-33741-8

Journal information: Scientific Reports 

Provided by Max Planck Society A stormy, active sun may have kickstarted life on Earth