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Cosmic dust fertilization of glacial prebiotic chemistry on early Earth

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Peer-reviewed

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Abstract

jats:titleAbstract</jats:title>jats:pEarth’s surface is deficient in available forms of many elements considered limiting for prebiotic chemistry. In contrast, many extraterrestrial rocky objects are rich in these same elements. Limiting prebiotic ingredients may, therefore, have been delivered by exogenous material; however, the mechanisms by which exogeneous material may be reliably and non-destructively supplied to a planetary surface remains unclear. Today, the flux of extraterrestrial matter to Earth is dominated by fine-grained cosmic dust. Although this material is rarely discussed in a prebiotic context due to its delivery over a large surface area, concentrated cosmic dust deposits are known to form on Earth today due to the action of sedimentary processes. Here we combine empirical constraints on dust sedimentation with dynamical simulations of dust formation and planetary accretion to show that localized sedimentary deposits of cosmic dust could have accumulated in arid environments on early Earth, in particular glacial settings that today produce cryoconite sediments. Our results challenge the widely held assumption that cosmic dust is incapable of fertilizing prebiotic chemistry. Cosmic dust deposits may have plausibly formed on early Earth and acted to fertilize prebiotic chemistry.</jats:p>

Description

Acknowledgements: C.R.W. acknowledges the Natural Environment Research Council and UK Research and Innovation for support through a Doctoral Training Partnerships studentship, Natural Environment Research Council (grant no. NE/L002507/1), financial support from the Cambridge Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe, funding support from Trinity College (Cambridge) in the form of a Junior Research Fellowship, funding support from ETH Zürich and the NOMIS Foundation in the form of a research fellowship. We thank D. Ritson for their comments on an early version of the paper.


Funder: NOMIS Stiftung (NOMIS Foundation); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100008483


Funder: University of Cambridge | Trinity College, University of Cambridge; doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000727


Funder: RCUK | Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000270


Funder: RCUK | Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000271


Funder: Merton College, University of Oxford (Merton College Oxford); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/100010352

Keywords

5101 Astronomical Sciences, 51 Physical Sciences

Journal Title

Nature Astronomy

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2397-3366
2397-3366

Volume Title

8

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Sponsorship
NERC (NE/L002507/1)