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- Title
A Surface Hydrothermal Source of Nitriles and Isonitriles.
- Authors
Rimmer, Paul B.; Shorttle, Oliver
- Abstract
Giant impacts can generate transient hydrogen-rich atmospheres, reducing atmospheric carbon. The reduced carbon will form hazes that rain out onto the surface and can become incorporated into the crust. Once heated, a large fraction of the carbon is converted into graphite. The result is that local regions of the Hadean crust were plausibly saturated with graphite. We explore the consequences of such a crust for a prebiotic surface hydrothermal vent scenario. We model a surface vent fed by nitrogen-rich volcanic gas from high-temperature magmas passing through graphite-saturated crust. We consider this occurring at pressures of 1– 1000 bar and temperatures of 1500– 1700 ∘ C . The equilibrium with graphite purifies the leftover gas, resulting in substantial quantities of nitriles ( 0.1 % HCN and 1 ppm HC3N) and isonitriles ( 0.01 % HNC) relevant for prebiotic chemistry. We use these results to predict gas-phase concentrations of methyl isocyanide of ∼1 ppm. Methyl isocyanide can participate in the non-enzymatic activation and ligation of the monomeric building blocks of life, and surface or shallow hydrothermal environments provide its only known equilibrium geochemical source.
- Subjects
ISOCYANIDES; NITRILES; HYDROTHERMAL vents; VOLCANIC gases; GRAPHITE; HADEAN; SULFIDE ores
- Publication
Life (2075-1729), 2024, Vol 14, Issue 4, p498
- ISSN
2075-1729
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3390/life14040498