Marine Hydrothermal Systems and the Origin of Life

Marine Hydrothermal Systems and the Origin of Life
Author: N.G. Holm
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9401127417

Research of the origins of life in connection with a marine environment started at the end of the seventies, when the `black smokers' in the Pacific were discovered and the Red Sea deep hydrothermal brines were found to be a fruitful environment for abiotic synthesis of life precursors. For a while this research was categorised under the heading `chemistry', but in less than a decade the topic became fully integrated into the science of 'oceanography'. The Scientific Committee on Oceanographic Research (SCOR) initiated Working Group 91: Chemical Evolution and Origin of Life in Marine Hydrothermal Systems'. This volume contains the final report of this working group.

Life in the Solar System and Beyond

Life in the Solar System and Beyond
Author: Barrie W. Jones
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2004-02-11
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9781852331016

In Life in the Solar System and Beyond, Professor Jones has written a broad introduction to the subject, addressing important topics such as, what is life?, the origins of life and where to look for extraterrestrial life. The chapters are arranged as follows: Chapter 1 is a broad introduction to the cosmos, with an emphasis on where we might find life. In Chapters 2 and 3 Professor Jones discusses life on Earth, the one place we know to be inhabited. Chapter 4 is a brief tour of the Solar system, leading us in Chapters 5 and 6 to two promising potential habitats, Mars and Europa. In Chapter 7 the author discusses the fate of life in the Solar system, which gives us extra reason to consider life further afield. Chapter 8 focuses on the types of stars that might host habitable planets, and where in the Galaxy these might be concentrated. Chapters 9 and 10 describe the instruments and techniques being employed to discover planets around other stars (exoplanetary systems), and those that will be employed in the near future. Chapter 11 summarizes the known exoplanetary systems, together with an outline of the systems we expect to discover soon, particularly habitable planets. Chapter 12 describes how we will attempt to find life on these planets, and the final chapter brings us to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and the question as to whether we are alone.

Diversity of Hydrothermal Systems on Slow Spreading Ocean Ridges

Diversity of Hydrothermal Systems on Slow Spreading Ocean Ridges
Author: Peter A. Rona
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 1110
Release: 2013-05-02
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1118671503

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Geophysical Monograph Series, Volume 188. Diversity of Hydrothermal Systems on Slow Spreading Ocean Ridges presents a multidisciplinary overview of the remarkable emerging diversity of hydrothermal systems on slow spreading ocean ridges in the Atlantic, Indian, and Arctic oceans. When hydrothermal systems were first found on the East Pacific Rise and other Pacific Ocean ridges beginning in the late 1970s, the community consensus held that the magma delivery rate of intermediate to fast spreading was necessary to support black smoker-type high-temperature systems and associated chemosynthetic ecosystems and polymetallic sulfide deposits. Contrary to that consensus, hydrothermal systems not only occur on slow spreading ocean ridges but, as reported in this volume, are generally larger, exhibit different chemosynthetic ecosystems, produce larger mineral deposits, and occur in a much greater diversity of geologic settings than those systems in the Pacific. The full diversity of hydrothermal systems on slow spreading ocean ridges, reflected in the contributions to this volume, is only now emerging and opens an exciting new frontier for ocean ridge exploration, including Processes of heat and chemical transfer from the Earth's mantle and crust via slow spreading ocean ridges to the oceans The major role of detachment faulting linking crust and mantle in hydrothermal circulation Chemical reaction products of mantle involvement including serpentinization, natural hydrogen, abiotic methane, and hydrocarbon synthesis Generation of large polymetallic sulfide deposits hosted in ocean crust and mantle Chemosynthetic vent communities hosted in the diverse settings The readership for this volume will include schools, universities, government laboratories, and scientific societies in developed and developing nations, including over 150 nations that have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Hydrothermal Processes at Seafloor Spreading Centers

Hydrothermal Processes at Seafloor Spreading Centers
Author: Peter A. Rona
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 802
Release: 2013-11-21
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1489904026

During the past ten years, evidence has developed to indicate that seawater convects through oceanic crust driven by heat derived from creation of lithosphere at the Earth-encircling oceanic ridge-rift system of seafloor spreading centers. This has stimulated multiple lines of research with profound implications for the earth and life sciences. The lines of research comprise the role of hydrothermal convection at seafloor spreading centers in the Earth's thermal regime by cooling of newly formed litho sphere (oceanic crust and upper mantle); in global geochemical cycles and mass balances of certain elements by chemical exchange between circulating seawater and basaltic rocks of oceanic crust; in the concentration of metallic mineral deposits by ore-forming processes; and in adaptation of biological communities based on a previously unrecognized form of chemosynthesis. The first work shop devoted to interdisciplinary consideration of this field was organized by a committee consisting of the co-editors of this volume under the auspices of a NATO Advanced Research Institute (ARI) held 5-8 April 1982 at the Department of Earth Sciences of Cambridge University in England. This volume is a product of that workshop. The papers were written by members of a pioneering research community of marine geologists, geophysicists, geochemists and biologists whose work is at the stage of initial description and interpretation of hydrothermal and associated phenomena at seafloor spreading centers.

Assembling Life

Assembling Life
Author: David W. Deamer
Publisher: Academic
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2019
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0190646381

Explores the possibilities of how life began on Earth four billion years ago

The Molecular Origins of Life

The Molecular Origins of Life
Author: André Brack
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 432
Release: 1998-12-28
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780521564755

This 199 book reviews discoveries in astronomy, paleontology, biology and chemistry to help us to understand the likely origin of life on Earth.

The Origin of Life on the Earth

The Origin of Life on the Earth
Author: Ann Synge
Publisher: Legare Street Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-10-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781015512269

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.