CSO and Center for Astrobiology Special Lecture: Dr. Michael Russell

The University of Colorado Centers for the Study of Origins and Astrobiology are pleased to announce a special lecture by Dr. Michael Russell, from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology on Friday, February 22nd, at 5PM in Benson Earth Sciences Building 180.

Title: Green Rust: Precursor mineral to the Banded Iron Formations AND the first cells

Abstract: The Earth agglomerates and heats through frictional flow and radiogenesis. Convection cells in the planetary interior, begin the cooling pro- cess. Volcanoes exhale carbon dioxide, nitric oxide and pyrophosphate. An acidulous Hadean ocean condenses from the carbon dioxide sky. The cooled carbonic ocean leaks into the stressed crust and convects. Hight T acid springs driven by magmatic plumes, emit Fe2+, Ni2+, Co2+ into the carbonic ocean. Lower T alkaline solutions emit H2, HCOO-, CH4 and HS-, But mixing with the Fe+NO+CO2-rich ocean is frustrated by precipitation of green rust (~Fe2+4Fe3+2OH12CO3.3H2O) and FeS barriers. Buried, green rust converts to the Fe3O4 > greenal- ite layers of the Banded Iron Formations. But at the vent itself, green rust, with its aqueous innards, con- verts the large disequilibrium between the oxidized acidic ocean water, and the alkaline reduced hydro- thermal spring water to produce ammonium, carboxylic and amino acids, and peptidic amyloidal metalloenzymes, thus acting as the the precursor of the first cells.

More information: https://www.colorado.edu/origins/2019/01/08/cso-and-center-astrobiology-special-lecture-dr-michael-russell

Email originsinfo@colorado.edu with any questions.