Michael J Russell, Laura M Barge, Rohit Bhartia, Dylan Bocanegra, Paul J Bracher, Elbert Branscomb, Richard Kidd, Shawn McGlynn, David H Meier, Wolfgang Nitschke, Takazo Shibuya, Steve Vance, Lauren White, Isik Kanik
This paper presents a reformulation of the submarine alkaline hydrothermal theory for the emergence of life in response to recent experimental findings. The theory views life, like other self-organizing systems in the Universe, as an inevitable outcome of particular disequilibria. In this case, the disequilibria were two: (1) in redox potential, between hydrogen plus methane with the circuit-completing electron acceptors such as nitrite, nitrate, ferric iron, and carbon dioxide, and (2) in pH gradient between an acidulous external ocean and an alkaline hydrothermal fluid...
April 2014: Astrobiology