Deep sea hydrothermal vents and the origins of life

Discovery Provides Key Evidence Of Life's Beginnings
Science Daily <http://www.sciencedaily.com/> - Researchers from
Saint Louis University (SLU) and Peking University in China are
revealing for the first time the findings of a discovery that could
change the way we think about the development of life on Earth.

Two years ago, Timothy Kusky, Ph.D., the Paul C. Reinert Professor of
Natural Sciences at SLU, and Jianghai Li, a professor of geological
science at Peking University, dug up hundreds of fossilized black
smoker
chimneys in northern China.

Since then, the researchers have been analyzing the samples in several
laboratories. The discovery is important, the researchers say, because
it lends support to the theory that life on the planet developed on
the
sea floor.

Findings the discovery are being reported in the latest issue of
Gondwana Research, an international interdisciplinary journal
published
by Elsevier, the world's leading publisher of science and health
information. It is featured as the journal's cover article.

Black smoker chimneys are deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Marine
geologists
and biologists routinely explore the depths of the ocean in
submersibles
looking for these chimneys. Scientists have discovered many new
species
of organisms near active chimneys, including a creature so unusual
that
it was classified in a phylum of its own.

Because they are home to the most primitive life forms on Earth,
fossilized chimneys offer important clues to origins of life on the
planet, Kusky said. However, bringing fossilized chimneys found on the
ocean's floor to the surface is difficult - they are fragile and
easily crumble.

The SLU/Peking chimneys are 1.43 billion years old, the oldest such
discovery on record, with previous findings dating back about 500
million years. They're also the largest, with the largest fragment
measuring about 3 feet in length, while previous discoveries have been
just a few inches long.

Kusky said the age and size of the chimneys will help scientists
understand the interaction between ancient hydrothermal processes and
the development of life on the sea floor in ways that were not
possible
before.

"This discovery offers scientists valuable on-land samples for
geological and geobiological research with implications for the origin
and evolution of early life on Earth," said Kusky, also director of
Saint Louis University's Center for Environmental Sciences.

M. Santosh, editor-in-chief of Gondwana Research and professor of
geology at Kochi University in Japan, said the paper represents a
major
advance in the geological sciences and offers important insights for
biologists, oceanographers and other scientists.

During their months of testing and analysis, the team discovered a
type
of ancient microbe that relied on metal sulfide for nourishment lining
the fringes of the chimneys.

It's the first known case where such microbes have been shown to have
lived within the ancient fossil chimneys.

"This discovery provides tantalizing suggestions that early life may
have developed and remained sheltered in deep-sea hydrothermal vents
until surface conditions became favorable for organisms to inhabit the
land," Kusky said.

Source: Saint Louis University Medical Center
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070727184902.htm
<http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070727184902.htm>

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