[Continent and Life Evolution]. Earth is the only known planet in the solar system that can sustain and provide a habitable environment for life, largely due to the presence of […]
biogeochemistry
Posted inWater/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography
A New Database To Track Origins Of Water From Space
[Rice University]. International collaboration makes decades of satellite data more accessible to scientists studying global water cycle.
Posted inExtremeophiles and Extreme Environments
Novel Antarctic Chemolithotroph Drives Iron Biomineralization
[Microbiome] Background: Iron, the most abundant redox-active metal in the Earth’s crust, is coupled to numerous biogeochemi- cal cycles. However, the mechanisms of iron oxidation and the organisms involved remain […]
Posted inMars
Microbial Methanogenesis on Mars: A Life Detection Target For An MLE-Type Mission And Future Human Exploration
[astro-ph.IM] Methane (CH4) is one of the most enigmatic and potentially consequential trace gases detected on Mars, having demonstrated apparent seasonality, localized plumes, or, depending on who you ask, never […]
Posted inImpact events
Impact Crater Hydrothermal Systems Support Rapid Microbial Enrichment and Diverse Metabolic Potential
[Geobiology ] Impact crater hydrothermal systems, formed after asteroid and comet impacts, have been proposed as promising habitats for life on early Earth and as key targets in the search […]
Posted inBiogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology
A Geochemical Precursor of ATP
[Heinrich-Heine University Duesseldorf] Where did the energy come from to power the chemical origin of life and how did phosphate come to be the universal energy currency of cells?
Posted inWater/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography
How Ocean Chemistry On Earth Helped Life Keep Breathing
[UC Riverside] Scientists have helped solve a longstanding mystery about how Earth remained habitable after oxygen first accumulated in its atmosphere more than 2 billion years ago, providing evidence that […]
Posted inHabitable Zones
Calculating Potential Cumulative Carbon Fixed And Evolutionary Stage For Earthlike Planets In Our Solar Neighborhood
[International Journal of Astrobiology] We propose a novel method for estimating possible biological evolutionary stage on exoplanets based on the hypothesis that biological evolutionary state is a linear function of […]
Posted inOrigin & Evolution of Life
New Study Pinpoints When Early Earth May Have Become Ready for Life’s Chemistry
[PSI] Conditions on the early Earth may have become stable enough to sustain the chemistry associated with the origins of life around 4.33 billion years ago, according to new research […]
Posted inOrigin & Evolution of Life
Do Himalayan-style Mountains Lie Under The Antarctic ice: Implication For The Gondwana Supermountains, The Rise Of Oxygen And The Cambrian Explosion?
[Earth and Planetary Science Letters] Analyses of detrital zircons from Antarctica show that its tectonics were dominated by Himalayan-style mountains, the roots of which now underlie the ice sheet.