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Genesis: Rocks, Minerals, and the Geochemical Origin of Life

Article in Elements · June 2005

DOI: 10.2113/gselements.1.3.135

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 Genesis: Rocks, Minerals,
and the Geochemical Calcite crystal surfaces

Origin of Life may have adsorbed

and organized
molecules essential to
the origin of life.

Robert M. Hazen, Guest Editor 1

1978), provide plausible solutions.

L
ife arose on the young Earth as a natural chemical process. More than
But when it comes to energetic
half a century of experimental research has underscored the dynamic organizing surfaces, nothing beats
interactions of atmosphere, oceans, and rocks that fostered this ancient minerals.
transition from geochemistry to biochemistry. Researchers on the origin of The ability of crystalline surfaces
life now conclude that rocks and minerals must have played key roles in to select and organize molecules is
virtually every phase of life’s emergence—they catalyzed the synthesis of key beautifully illustrated in the work
of Stephen Sowerby and col-
biomolecules; they selected, protected, and concentrated those molecules; leagues, who exposed ideally flat
they jump-started metabolism; and they may even have acted as life’s first cleavage faces of graphite (C) and
genetic system. molybdenite (MoS2) to solutions
of adenine, guanine, and other
KEYWORDS: origin of life, biogenesis, metabolism, genetics, adsorption biologically interesting organic
species (Sowerby et al. 1998). Not
INTRODUCTION only are these cyclic molecules
strongly adsorbed to the mineral surfaces, but they also
Few scientific questions so capture the public imagination,
adopt elegant two-dimensional structures (FIG. 1). Such an
or provoke such lively debate, as how life on Earth
organized molecular assembly might represent an early step
emerged. In this issue of Elements, four of the most creative
in the emergence of life.
minds in origins research present their original insights on
the geochemical origins of life. Each author has studied the
field in depth, and each has come to an inescapable con-
clusion: rocks and minerals must have played a pivotal role
in the transition from the blasted, prebiotic Earth to the liv-
ing world we now inhabit.
The contributions of rocks and minerals to life’s geochem-
ical origins were not always so well appreciated. The pio-
neering experiments of University of Chicago graduate stu-
dent Stanley Miller and his mentor, Harold Urey, revealed
that organic molecules essential to biology form abundant-
ly when a simple mixture of reduced gases is subjected to
electrical sparks (Miller 1953; Miller and Urey 1959).
Within a decade, a growing army of origins chemists fol-
lowed their lead to synthesize most of life’s essential mole-
cules— amino acids, lipids, sugars, and more (Wills and
Bada 2000). Their conclusion: the primordial soup was
pregnant with life’s building blocks (Chyba and Sagan
1992).

MOLECULAR SELECTION
Deep mysteries remained. The vast volume of Earth’s early
oceans would have hopelessly diluted the concentration of
synthetic organic molecules, no matter how abundantly
they were produced. How could such dispersed molecules
ever combine into self-replicating entities? Any viable ori-
gins scenario thus requires a means to select and concen-
trate just the right molecules from that watery prebiotic
broth. Energetic interfaces, such as a primitive oil slick or FIGURE 1 Adenine, a biomolecule that contributes to both meta-
bolic and genetic processes (C5H5N5; illustrated as clus-
an evaporating tidal pool (Lasaga et al. 1971; Lahav et al.
ters of 15 smaller white, silver and blue spheres, which represent hydro-
gen, carbon and nitrogen atoms, respectively), forms a periodic
two-dimensional structure on molybdenite (MoS2; illustrated as larger
1 Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution and NASA
yellow and blue spheres, which represent sulfur and molybdenum
Astrobiology Institute,
atoms, respectively). Similar molecular adsorption and organization on
5251 Broad Branch Road NW, Washington, DC 20015, USA
mineral surfaces may have played a central role in life’s origin (after
E-mail: [email protected]
Sowerby et al. 1996).

ELEMENTS, VOL. 1, PP 135–137 135 J UNE 2005

My own work focuses on the ability of minerals to adsorb What process selected this idiosyncratic subset of molecules
interesting biomolecules selectively. One of life’s most puz- during the origin of life? A possible answer lies in the
zling biochemical quirks is its high degree of molecular behavior of everyday minerals like quartz and calcite,
selectivity. Consider amino acids, the building blocks of which we find are able to select and concentrate specific
proteins, as an example. Nature boasts dozens upon dozens biological amino acids from an equimolar mix (Churchill et
of different kinds; more than 70 different amino acids have al. 2004). What’s more, certain crystal faces of these and
been extracted from the Murchison meteorite alone. other minerals display an aptitude for adsorbing handed or
What’s more, most amino acids come in mirror image left- “chiral” molecules (Hazen et al. 2001; Hazen and Sholl
and right-handed forms, but for some reason life uses only 2003; Hazen 2004, FIG. 2). Perhaps in this way minerals pro-
about 20 of these varied species, and it employs the left- vided the organizing template for life.
handed kinds almost exclusively.
METABOLISM AND GENETICS
Among the many lively ongoing debates in origin-of-life
research is the conundrum of which came first, metabolism
or genetics? Metabolism is the ability to manufacture bio-
molecules from a source of energy (such as sunlight) and
matter scavenged from the surroundings (usually in the
form of small molecules). An organism cannot survive and
grow without an adequate supply of energy and matter.
Genetics, by contrast, is the process by which biological
information is transferred from one generation to the
next—a blueprint for life via the mechanisms of DNA and
RNA. An organism cannot reproduce without a reliable
means to pass on this genetic information.
The problem for understanding life’s origins is that metab-
olism and genetics constitute two separate, chemically dis-
tinct systems in cells, yet they are inextricably linked in
modern life. DNA holds genetic instructions to make hun-
dreds of molecules essential to metabolism, while metabo-
lism provides both the energy and the basic building blocks
to make DNA and other genetic materials. Like the dilem-
ma of the chicken and the egg, it is difficult to imagine
back to a time when metabolism and genetics were not
intertwined. Consequently, origin-of-life researchers
engage in an intense, ongoing debate about whether these
two aspects of life arose simultaneously or independently
and, if the latter, which one came first (Orgel 1986;
Morowitz 1992).
Mineralogy offers insights to this debate, for various min-
erals may have played many different roles in the transition
from geochemistry to biochemistry. Modern life, for the
most part, provides few clues about this rocky start, but the
complex enzymes that promote cellular metabolism may
represent a dramatic exception. Biocatalysts in the form of
protein enzymes assist metabolic reactions, which build
life’s essential components from small molecules like H2O
and CO2. These enzymes commonly incorporate a small
cluster of transition metal and sulfur atoms at the so-called
“active site,” where the critical electron transfer process
takes place (Beinert et al. 1997). In many modern enzymes,
this metal–sulfur cluster looks just like a tiny bit of sulfide
mineral. Building on these observations and a flurry of fas-
cinating theoretical speculations (notably Wächtershäuser
1992), George Cody and coworkers at the Carnegie
Institution exploit this intriguing biochemical observation
in their studies of sulfide-catalyzed organic reactions at ele-
vated temperatures and pressures—conditions that mimic
prebiotic hydrothermal environments. In this issue, Cody
explores how such mineral-catalyzed reactions may have
FIGURE 2 A calculated model of aspartic acid adsorption onto the jump-started a primitive metabolic cycle. Perhaps the first
calcite {214} surface reveals three strong interactions: life-like chemical system was a cycle of metabolic reactions
two between Ca in calcite (green spheres) and O in the amino acid
(orange spheres), and one between O in the calcite (red spheres) and driven by the redox potential of iron and nickel sulfides.
H in the amino acid (white spheres). Grey and blue spheres represent
carbon and nitrogen atoms, respectively. The essential amino acid
Noted origins expert James Ferris of Rensselaer Polytechnic
aspartic acid occurs in both left-handed (L) and right-handed (D) Institute begins from a different perspective, that of the
forms, but life uses the L form almost exclusively. Experiments (Hazen molecular biologist. Ferris and his colleagues argue that life
et al. 2001) and theoretical calculations (Asthagiri et al. 2004) reveal must have begun with the first self-replicating genetic
that the common calcite {214} crystal surface strongly selects for D-
aspartic acid, whereas the mirror-image face selects L-aspartic acid.
molecule, such as RNA. His transforming studies of clay-
catalyzed formation of RNA polymers have made headlines

ELEMENTS 136 J UNE 2005

 and have proven extremely influential in the origins In the hands of a lesser scholar, such a proposition might
research community. His sweeping review in this issue have been rejected out of hand, but Cairns-Smith com-
recounts a quarter-century of progress toward understand- mands close attention and broad respect. His work is deeply
ing how clay minerals might have adsorbed, selected, rooted in the philosophy of biology—What is life? he asks,
organized, and catalyzed the building blocks of life’s genetic and what characteristics serve to distinguish the living
machinery. from the dead? All known life today is carbon based, with
cellular structures enclosing a DNA-based genetic system,
Famed University of Chicago mineralogist Joseph V. Smith,
but was that always so, and must it be the same on other
echoing the work of Cody and Ferris, sees minerals as both
worlds? By exploring the life-like properties of hypothetical
effective templates for the selection of minerals and likely
evolving clays, and by proposing detailed (if as yet techni-
catalysts for the initiation of biochemical reactions. Smith,
cally impossible) experiments, he is squarely in the main-
however, focuses on zeolites and other mesoporous miner-
stream of the scientific enterprise.
als—materials with molecule-sized pores that are produced
abundantly through the action of primordial volcanism. Scientists are still far from understanding the ancient, intri-
cate processes that led to the origin of life. Fascinating
LIVING CLAYS experiments and theories of the sort highlighted in this
issue will continue to contribute small pieces to that
And then we come to the extraordinary vision of Glasgow-
immensely complex puzzle. As a unified picture of life’s ori-
based Graham Cairns-Smith, who proposes that the emer-
gin emerges, the central roles of rocks and minerals are sure
gence of life was not just promoted by a mineral, but that
to expand and further serve to integrate the seamless web
the first lifeform was perhaps a clay mineral itself. Even the
of knowledge that links the physical and biological sci-
most chauvinistic geoscientist might balk at such a claim,
ences.
but Cairns-Smith’s ideas have been taken very seriously by
the origin-of-life community, and his almost four decades
of provocative publications are among the most widely ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
cited in the field. In elegant and persuasive prose, he sug- RMH thanks the four authors for their outstanding efforts
gests that clay minerals carry a kind of genetic information in preparing these reviews, and editors Michael Hochella
in their complex sequences of point defects, layer orienta- and Pierrette Tremblay of Elements for the opportunity to
tions, and metal cation substitutions. Clays themselves bring this issue together, and for their efficient guidance
undergo natural selection and evolution as they dissolve and support throughout the process. Support for RMH dur-
and precipitate, he says. The most “fit” sequences win in ing work on this issue was provided by the NASA
this Darwinian struggle for survival. For Cairns-Smith, clay Astrobiology Institute and the Carnegie Institution of
minerals were indeed the first lifeforms on Earth. Washington. .

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ELEMENTS 137 J UNE 2005

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