BRENT: If it weren’t for the emergence of complex organic molecules some billions of years ago, humans as well as other organisms wouldn’t exist today. Now new research claims that hot ocean vents found on the seafloor are the source of life on Earth as we know it.
According to a team of chemists from the University College London (UCL), the surfaces of mineral particles inside hydrothermal vents have similar chemical properties to enzymes – the biological molecules that drive chemical reactions in living organisms. This means that seabed vents are able to create simple carbon-based molecules, such as methanol and formic acid, out of the dissolved carbon dioxide (CO2) in the water.
The discovery, published in the journal Chemical Communications, suggests that some of the key building blocks for organic chemistry were already being formed in nature before life emerged. Thus, hot vents on the seabed could have spontaneously produced the organic molecules necessary for life as we know it.
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