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he early Earth was hot and chaotic, bombarded intensely from 4.5 to
3.8 billion years ago. In ponds near the flanks of volcanoes, feldspars
and zeolites from volcanic flows and ash were alternately washed by
fluids and dried, fostering adsorption and catalytic processes. Some silica-rich
surfaces favored adsorption of organic molecules, including amino acids,
which were produced by lightning in volcanic clouds. Catalysis then promoted polymerization to generate more complex molecules. Dissolution of alkali
feldspars created a honeycomb of cavities, which may have acted as temporary cell walls, while phosphorus released from the weathering feldspar
framework was available for energy molecules. Following the emergence
of the first cells, geochemical processes continued to influence biological
evolution. Alkali-rich volcanoes introduced metallic elements, which served
as nutrients in the food supply and may also have accelerated the rate of
primate evolution prior to the appearance of hominids.
ELEMENTS, VOL. 1,
PP
151156
MINERAL CATALYSTS
Bernal (1949) suggested that life began by catalytic assembly on a mineral surface, but early attempts to formulate an
integrated scheme of physicochemical processes had a significant weakness. Concepts of catalysis that use organic
compounds originally dispersed in aqueous organic soup
require a mechanism for concentrating the organic species
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Zeolites
Many early ideas about the role of minerals in lifes origins,
for example hypotheses that exploit quartz surfaces, are
implausible in detail because the proposed mineral surfaces
strongly prefer water and other ionic species to organic
molecules. However, the synthetic molecular sieve silica silicalite (synthesized by Union Carbide = Al-free Mobil ZSM5 synthetic zeolite) has a 3D channel system (FIG. 1) whose
electrically neutral SiO surface strongly adsorbs organic
species in preference to water. In silicalite, all silicon atoms
FIGURE 1
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FIGURE 2
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FIGURE 3
Therefore, I suggest that consideration be given to a possible link between volcano-driven food supply and an accelerated rate of gene mutations. This idea is speculative, but
some of the trace elements essential to primate brain function are also known to be mutagenic. For example, Mg is
known to stabilize the bending of DNA into particular
curved structures, but when Mn or other divalent cations
are substituted for Mg, the error rate of nucleotide incorporation increases (Bertini et al. 2000). Perhaps an increase in
environmental transition metals provided the necessary
chemicals for increased brain function, while simultaneously increasing the rate of mutations, some of which led
to a fortuitous further increase in brain function. Relating
gene mutation to biochemistry, geochemistry, and volcanology is a scientific study in its infancy, and my broad
suggestions may well turn out to be wrong. Nevertheless,
there may be a way to test at least some of these ideas.
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FIGURE 4
CONCLUSIONS
The importance of mineralogy and geochemistry for
Darwinian evolution has changed greatly over geologic
time. Four billion years ago, only the most primitive molecular assemblages could have occurred, triggered by catalytic reactions at organophilic mineral surfaces. Eventually, by
processes as yet poorly understood, a self-replicating biochemical system emerged from the geochemical milieu.
The resulting first living cells marked the transition from a
geochemical to a biochemical world.
The first cells were subjected to new competitive stresses
and thus underwent Darwinian evolution. Complex variations in food supply and environmental conditions, possibly including changes related to bolide impact and subsequent volcanism, allowed this evolution to proceed in fits
and starts.
In this long evolutionary history of life, the development of
large-brained primates remains of special interest. About 30
million years ago, the East African Rift opened up at the
north, releasing magmas especially rich in biochemically
important elements from the mantle. Volcanic mountains
grew larger, ultimately generating a rich mosaic of local
conditions. Whether there were bursts of genetic evolution
as a result of the enhanced food supply linked to this
unusual volcanic activity is not testable with present data.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I thank Ian Parsons for feldspar photos and Barry Dawson
for collaboration on East African geology, including supply
of photographs. I also thank Robert Hazen and the editors
of Elements for their advice. .
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