Last Chance is shallow water, less than a foot deep. (Representative photo)
A Canadian lake holds clues to the origins of life on Earth, a new study says. Some scientists argue that life arose in volcanic regions with a precise mix of chemicals and physical conditions. This is likely set around 4 billion years ago, and research by David Catling and his colleagues provides new support for this idea. They studied Last Chance Lake, a shallow, saline body of water located on a volcanic plateau in British Columbia, Canada.
Researchers said the lake is packed with clues that ancient Earth’s carbonate-rich lakes may have been “cradles of life.” This study journal Nature January 9th.
“We were able to examine the specific conditions that humans use to synthesize the building blocks of life in nature,” said Catling, a professor of geosciences at the University of Washington. I’m thinking about it.” .
They were drawn to the lake after studying an unpublished master’s thesis from the 1990s that documented unusually high levels of phosphate.
Last Chance is shallow water, less than a foot deep. It is located on a volcanic plateau over 1,000 meters above sea level. The lake contains the highest levels of concentrated phosphate ever recorded in any natural body of water on Earth. This is more than 1,000 times higher than typical values for oceans and lakes. CNN He quoted Sebastian Haas, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington who studies microbiology and the chemistry of aquatic environments. He is the lead author of that paper.
Phosphates are important components of biomolecules and contain the life-sustaining element phosphorus. It is found in molecules such as RNA and DNA.
Water samples were taken from the lake in 2021-2022. Analysis revealed that in addition to phosphates, the water also contained a mineral called dolomite.
A combination of chemical processes influenced by the mineralogy of the volcanic rock in which the lake formed and the arid climate effectively produced a unique concentration of phosphate. Researchers believe that this set of conditions may have once led to the emergence of life on the lake. Earth, according to Haas.
