NDLI: Flash Heating on the Early Earth

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Lyons, James R. Vasavada, Ashwin R.
Copyright Year	1999
Abstract	It has been suggested that very large impact events (∼ 500 km diameter impactors) sterilized the surface of the young Earth by producing enough rock vapor to boil the oceans. Here, we consider surface heating due to smaller impactors, and demonstrate that surface temperatures conducive to organic synthesis resulted. In particular, we focus on the synthesis of thermal peptides. Previously, laboratory experiments have demonstrated that dry heating a mixture of amino acids containing excess Asp, Glu, or Lys to temperatures ∼ 170 °C for ∼ 2 hours yields polypeptides. It has been argued that such temperature conditions would not have been available on the early Earth. Here we demonstrate, by analogy with the K/T impact, that the requisite temperatures are achieved on sand surfaces during the atmospheric reentry of fine ejecta particles produced by impacts of bolides ∼10–20 km in diameter, assuming ∼ 1 – 100 PAL CO2. Impactors of this size struck the Earth with a frequency of ∼ 1 per 104 – 105 y at 4.2 Ga. Smaller bolides produced negligible global surface heating, whereas bolides > 30 km in diameter yielded solid surface temperatures > 1000 K , high enough to pyrolyze amino acids and other organic compounds. Thus, peptide formation would have occurred globally for a relatively narrow range of bolide sizes.
Starting Page	123
Ending Page	138
Page Count	16
File Format	PDF
ISSN	01696149
Journal	Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres
Volume Number	29
Issue Number	2
e-ISSN	15730875
Language	English
Publisher	Kluwer Academic Publishers
Publisher Date	1999-01-01
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Subject Keyword	Organic Chemistry Geochemistry Biochemistry
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Medicine Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Space and Planetary Science

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1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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