Seawater might have supplied the phosphorus required for emerging life. Researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Cape Town may have found a solution to the mystery of how phosphorus came to be an essential component of life on Earth by recreating prehistoric seawater containing the elemen
The discoveries may alter scientists’ perceptions of the environments in which life initially originated.Researchers from the Universities of
The research, which was headed by University of Cambridge Ph.D. student Matthew Brady, reveals that early seawater may have carried 1,000–10,000 times more phosphate than previously thought, provided the water contained a lot of iron., which are the building blocks of life, although it is one of the least common elements in the universe relative to its biological significance.
They used geochemical modeling to simulate the early Earth’s conditions in order to understand how life came to rely on phosphate and the kind of environment that this element would have evolved in. The team’s results suggest that seawater itself could have been a major source of this essential element.
“We had a hunch that iron was key to phosphate solubility, but there just wasn’t enough data,” said Tosca. The idea for the team’s experiments came when they looked at waters that bathe sediments deposited in the modern Baltic Sea. “It is unusual because it is high in both phosphate and iron — we started to wonder what was so different about those particular waters.”
The results also have implications for scientists trying to understand the possibilities for life beyond Earth. “If iron helps put more phosphate in solution, then this could have relevance to earlyEvidence for water on ancient Mars is abundant, including old river beds and flood deposits, and we also know that there was a lot of iron at the surface and the atmosphere was at times oxygen-poor, said Tosca.
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