Table Of ContentCosmochemistry and the Origin of Life
NATO ADVANCED STUDY INSTITUTES SERIES
Proceedings of the Advanced Study Institute Programme, which aims
at the dissemination of advanced knowledge and
the formation of contacts among scientists from different countries
The series is published by an international board of publishers in conjunction
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and Physical Dordrecht, Boston and London
Sciences
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Series C - Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Volume 101 - Cosmochemistry and the Origin of Life
Cosmochemistry
and
the Origin of Life
Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute
held at Maratea, Italy, June 1-12,1981
edited by
CYRIL PONNAMPERUMA
Department of Chemistry, University ofM aryland, College Park, U.S.A.
D. Reidel Publishing Company
Dordrecht : Holland / Boston: U. S. A. / London: England
Published in cooperation with NATO Scientific Affairs Division
library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
NATO Advanced Study Institute (1981 : Maratea, Italy)
Cosmochemistry and the origin of life.
(NATO advanced study institutes series. Series C, Mathematical
and physical sciences; v. 101)
"Published in cooperation with NATO Scientific Affairs Division."
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Cosmochemistry-Congresses. 2. Life-Origin-Congresses.
I. Ponnamperuma, Cyril, 1923- II. North Atlantic Treaty
Organization. Scientific Affairs Division. III, Title. IV. Series.
QB450.N37 1981 577 82-24099
ISBN-13: 978-94-009-7074-8 c-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-7072-4
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-7072-4
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Copyright © 1983 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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CONTENTS
Preface vii
Cosmochemistry and the Origin of Life
Cyril Ponnamperuma 1
Synthesis of the Chemical Elements
V. E. Viola, Jr. 35
The Largest Molecules in Space: Interstellar Dust
J. Mayo Greenberg 71
Comets, Interstellar Molecules, and the Origin of Life
William M. Irvine and ~e Hjalmarson 113
Impact of Solar System Exploration on Theories of
Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life
Donald L. De Vincenzi 143
The Chemical Composition and Climatology of the Earth's
Early Atmosphere
A. Henderson-Sellers 175
The Dating of the Earliest Sediments on Earth
Stephen Moorbath 213
Inorganic Chemistry of Earliest Sediments: Bioinorganic
Chemical Aspects of the Origin and Evolution of Life
Ei-Ichiro Ochiai 235
Biologically Mediated Isotope Fractionations:
Biochemistry, Geochemical Significance arid
Preservation in the Earth's Oldest Sediments
Manfred Schidlowski 277
vi CONTENTS
Organic Molecules as Chemical Fossils - The Molecular
Fossil Record
Geoffrey Eglinton 323
Appendix: Cosmochemistry and the Origin of Life
G. Eglinton, A. Henderson-Sellers and S. Moorbath 361
Participants 365
Index 369
PREFACE
For the first time in human history, developments in many
branches of science provide us with an opportunity of formula
ting a comprehensive picture of the universe from its beginning
to the present time. It is an awesome reflection that the carbon
in our bodies is the very carbon which was generated during the
birth of a star. There is a perceptible continuum through the
billions of years which can be revealed by the study of chemistry.
Studies in nucleosynthesis have related the origin of the
elements to the life history of the stars. The chemical elements
we find on earth, HYdrogen, Carbon, Oxygen, and Nitrogen, were
created in astronomical processes that took place in the past,
and these elements are not spread throughout space in the form
of stars and galaxies.
Radioastronomers have discovered a vast array of organic
molecules in the interstellar medium which have a bearing on
prebiological chemical processes. Many of the molecules found so
far contain the four elements, C, N, 0, H. Except for the chem
ically unreactive He, these four elements are the most abundant
in the galaxy. The origin of polyatomic interstellar molecules is
an unresolved problem. While we can explain the formation of
some diatomic molecules as due to two atom collisions, it is
much more difficult to form polyatomic molecules by collisions
between diatomic molecules and atoms. There may be other produc
tion mechanisms at work such as reactions taking place on the
surface of interstellar dust grains.
Organic molecules which may be considered precursors to life
have also been found in carbonaceous chondrites. The discovery
an~ the dating of the earth's oldest sediments at around 3.8 x
10 years has helped us to get a glimpse of the face of our planet
at the very dawn of terrestrial time.
All these discoveries were examined in the light of the single
theme--Cosmochemistry. Withjn the pages of this volume are
vii
C. Ponnamperu111ll red.). Cosmochemistry and the Origin of Life. vii-viii.
Copyright © 1983 by D. Reidel Publishing Company.
viii PREFACE
assembled the authoritative statements of the principal lecturers
of the NATO Workshop which was held in Maratea in June, 1981.
There was ample opportunity for an exchange of ideas and discussion
on this subject. The papers published thus reflect some of the
thinking generated during a very enjoyable and intellectually
stimulating period in Italy. We are grateful to the speakers,
the participants and to NATO for having made such an intellectual
workshop possible.
Cyril Ponnamperuma
College Park, Maryland
June 1, 1982
COSMOCHEMISTRY AND THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
Cyril Ponnamperuma
Laboratory of Chemical Evolution, Department of Chemistry,
University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
HOW DID LIFE BEGIN?
One of the first to speculate on the conditions necessary
for the origin of life on earth was Erasmus Darwin, the grand
father of Charles Darwin. In his Temple ~ Nature (1) he had
written, "All vegetables and animals nm. existing were originally
derived from the smallest microscopic ones formed by spontaneous
vi tali ty." Perhaps this idea had influenced Charles Darwin in
his own thinking. Several years later, he wrote to 'his friend
Hooker (2) about some "warm little pond" with all sorts of
ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc.
present, in which he postulated that a protein compound was
chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes.
About this time the physicist John Tyndall (3) argued that
every portion of a living organism can be reduced to inorganic
matter. In his essay on vitality in 1866, he suggested that
one could conceive of the reverse change, from the inorganic to
the organic, and that the special arrangement of elements in
living bodies led to the phenomenon of life. In 1868, Thomas
Huxley (4) delivered a lecture in Edinburgh in which he pointed
out that protoplasm was substantially the same over the whole
range of living things. To him, the existence of life depended
on certain molecules such as carbonic acid, water, and nitrogenous
compounds. These compounds are lifeless, but when brought
together, give rise to protoplasm.
To the Russian biochemist, A. I. Oparin (5), more than to anyone
else today, we owe our present ideas on the scientific approach
to the question of the origin of life. In clear and scientifically
C. Pon/1llmperuma red.), Cosmochemistry and the Origin of Life, 1-34.
Copyright © 1983 by D. Reidel Publishing Company.
2 C. PONNAMPERUMA
defensible terms, he pointed out that there was no fundamental
difference between living organisms and brute matter. The
complex combination of manifestations and properties so charac
teristic of life must have arisen in the process of the evolution
of matter. In 1928, the British biologist Haldane (6) expressed
his own ideas on the origin of life. He attributed the synthesis
of organic compounds to the action of ultraviolet light on the
earth's primitive atmosphere. He suggested that the organic
compounds accumulated till the primitive oceans had the consistency
of a primordial soup. Twenty years after the appearance of
Haldane's paper, in the Rationalist Annual, Bernal (7) theorized
.before the British Physical Society in a lecture entitled,
"The Physical Bases of Life:"
Condensations and dehydrogenations are bound to
lead to increasingly unsaturated substances, and
ultimately to simple and possibly even to
condensed ring structures, almost certainly con
tain nitrogen, such as the pyrimidines and
purines. The appearance of such molecules
made possible still further synthesis. The
primary difficulty, however, of imagining
processes going this far was the extreme
dilution of the system, if it is to take place
in the free ocean. The concentration of products
is an absolute necessity for any further evolution.
THE RAW MATERIAL
The raw material from which the building blocks of life
have evolved consists of the chemical elements of the periodic
table. Examination of the crust of the earth, the oceans, and
the atmosphere provides us with the information about the abundance
of these elements on the earth. Data on the elemental composition
of matter beyond the earth come from several sources. The
spectroscopic analysis of light from stars reveals the nature of
the elements in them. The development of the science of radio
astronomy has provided us with the microwave technique of
detecting various elements and excited species in intergalactic
space. Cosmic ray particles can supply us with samples of extra
terrestrial matter. Meteorites and lunar samples have given us
valuable knowledge of the composition of our solar system.
A reasonable and consistent picture of the abundance of the
elements in the universe can thus be obtained.
Hydrogen is by far the most abundant element. It makes up
93% of the total number of atoms in the universe, and 76%
of the universe by weight. When atomic abundances are plotted
against atomic weights, there is in general an inverse correlation
