Discovery of Methane Puts Evolution 'On the rocks'

[tyler_demerhcant]

I have some questions:

What is the primary producer of Methane Gas? Is it not decomposing organics?

Also, has the methane gas itself been dated, or are they basing the age on the rocks that contained the bubbles?

Can anyone explain to me how non-organic gases can produce micro-inteligent organic life. I don't understand how solid matter can produce life...

[sandy_mcd]

What is the primary producer of Methane Gas? Is it not decomposing organics?

The primary source of methane introduced into the atmosphere in the present era is

Methane is emitted from a variety of both human-related (anthropogenic) and natural sources. Human-related activities include fossil fuel production, animal husbandry (enteric fermentation in livestock and manure management), rice cultivation, biomass burning, and waste management. These activities release significant quantities of methane to the atmosphere. It is estimated that 60% of global methane emissions are related to human-related activities (IPCC, 2001c). Natural sources of methane include wetlands, gas hydrates, permafrost, termites, oceans, freshwater bodies, non-wetland soils, and other sources such as wildfires.

A little farther down is "Table 1 U.S. Methane Emissions by Source (TgCO2 Equivalents)".
However, this paper is dealing with methane which has been trapped in rocks long ago. It is believed to have been generated by microbes. Termites are larger bugs which produce a significant amount of methane today.

Also, has the methane gas itself been dated, or are they basing the age on the rocks that contained the bubbles?

The surrounding rocks (not the quartz which contained the methane) were dated. {From Ueno: The samples came from the Dresser Formation at the North Pole area in Pilbara craton, Western Australia. The Dresser Formation consists of pillowed basaltic greenstones and chert beds. ... The minimum depositional age of the Dresser Formation is constrained by the zircon U—Pb age of 3,458 plus/minus 2 Myr for the felsic volcanics that overlie the formation[12]. A model lead age of 3,490 Myr[12] was obtained for galena from the chert—barite unit. This may represent the actual depositional age of the Dresser Formation[13, 14].} The gas was not dated; the only means would have been carbon dating and that technique only works for samples ~200,000 years old at best, usually considerably younger. It will not work for samples over 3 billion years old.

Can anyone explain to me how non-organic gases can produce micro-inteligent organic life.

No one can.

I don't understand how solid matter can produce life...

Well, you can freeze some bugs solid and they come back to life ... ? Also, some seeds are pretty solid ... ?

[sandy_mcd]

I have some questions:

How did the methane gas in the primary inclusions end up in the quartz crystals?

The basalts were intruded by numerous silica [lesbians], some of which terminate in the sedimentary layers (see Fig. 1 of the paper on page 517). This means that the [lesbians] are ancient and were formed during the deposition of the sediments. Small bubbles (fluid inclusions) are found within quartz minerals in the [lesbians], and these bubbles contain mainly carbon dioxide and water, but also some methane (CH4). Many of the bubbles align along the growth margins of the quartz, and so are believed to have formed as the quartz was precipitated: they are viewed as primary inclusions. Other bubbles are scattered randomly within the quartz (and are probably primary), while still others are concentrated where the quartz was fractured and resealed. These are viewed as secondary inclusions.

Did the quartz crystals grow around bugs? Or more likely, was the methane produce by bugs trapped in the solution from which the quartz crystals grew? If so, how long was it there? Where were the microbes at the time?

How cute! The formatter has removed a perfectly valid geological term and replaced it with "lesbians". The word was d y k e s.

Hmm, I wonder if my neighbor's dog has had her puppies yet. Perhaps I should call and see how the ***** is doing. Guess that one is ok.

[bizzt]

that is very Interesting Sandy... Let me take a look into that

[BGoodForGoodSake]

How cute! The formatter has removed a perfectly valid geological term and replaced it with "lesbians". The word was d y k e s.

Hmm, I wonder if my neighbor's dog has had her puppies yet. Perhaps I should call and see how the ***** is doing. Guess that one is ok.

heehee
That gave me a good chuckle.
That's a good way to start a day.
=)

[bizzt]

LOL unfortunately as an Admin you have to make a cut off point. None the less funny

[tyler_demerhcant]

I don't understand how solid matter can produce life...

Well, you can freeze some bugs solid and they come back to life ... ? Also, some seeds are pretty solid ... ?

Forgive me for my lack of tachnical wording.

I am trying to understand the difference between biological and non-biological matter.

For example, organic life versus pure metals. Non-biological matter does not require energy to sustain it's existance. Organic life requires steady intake of resource to produce energy to sustain it's lifecycle. Wouldnt there then need to be a different origin for both forms?

[tyler_demerhcant]

Also, how could this environment be sustained for such a long period of time?

Even if the organisims were creted from the methane and then produced methane and it was a cycle, the cycle would still lose heat energy and the methane gases would slowly decrease in quantaty.

[sandy_mcd]

Even if the organisims were creted from the methane and then produced methane and it was a cycle, the cycle would still lose heat energy and the methane gases would slowly decrease in quantaty.

Now I think I see what you are asking. It was not a methane to bugs to methane to bugs etc cycle. The methane was merely the waste product (flatulence as Canuckster put it). The bugs did not eat methane. Read the two links Bgood posted on the first page for more info about methanogenic microbes.
[Aside: there is a lot of methane trapped at the bottom of bodies of water, from inorganic and organic sources. Remember the inversion in the African lake where CO2 trapped at the bottom came out suffocated hundreds of people a few years ago? It is possible the same may happen with methane at the bottom of oceans as a consequence of global warming. No one knows for sure. Google "methane ocean" and there will be plenty of information.]

[sandy_mcd]

What is the primary producer of Methane Gas? Is it not decomposing organics?

Yes. But organics do not decompose into methane by themselves. Decomposition is the primarily the result of eating and digestion by microbes. The methane is a waste product of microbes decomposing organic material. Organic materials will break down somewhat under various conditions but will not produce methane without the essential bacteria and other little bugs.

[tyler_demerhcant]

O.k. great. So methane gas is produced by life. I thought there was a claim that methane gas produced life.

I am surprised that those bacteria didnt evolve into quartz eating insect so they could get their way the heck out of there. HOw horable, being stuck like that for millions of years!!! I would have to say that I would turn myself into methane gases

[sandy_mcd]

Also, if you [Bgood] question whether or not he [Dr. Rana] understands what he is talking about, Dr. Richard Smalley, a Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry in 1997 (or 1996) called all of his research spot on. ... It does not matter what one might believe, there has been not pathway or probability experiment which would show that life could emerge in such a short period of time.

No pathway has been demonstrated by which life could emerge in such a relatively short period of time. Does this observation imply that it is reasonable to assume no such pathway will ever be found? Consideration of the events and research involved with Dr. Smalley's Nobel Prize suggest that it would not be surprising for such a pathway to exist. In Smalley's case, something which was thought to be time-consuming and difficult turned out to be quick and easy.

In 1982, Paquette reported the synthesis of 20-hydrofullerene-20, a feat described as a "tour de force". This arduous process required 23 separate steps to produce a minuscule amount of material. It undoubtedly took months/years to complete and was based on decades/centuries of prior knowledge and expertise.

In 1985, Kroto, Curl, and Smalley discovered that fullerenes (particularly C60) occurred naturally on earth and in outer space (the basis of their Nobel Prize award). Physicists and chemists had not believed such molecules could form spontaneously. The initial announcement was met with surprise and some scepticism.

In 1990, Krätschmer and Huffman developed a simple method for generating C60 and C70 fullerenes.

So in the span of 8 years, fullerenes went conceptually from unknown, presumably extremely difficult-to-make compounds to materials a student could readily generate.

This unexpected occurrence happened in the field of chemistry, a mature science which has existed for hundreds of years. Origins of life science, on the other hand, is in its infancy. Harvard, one of the most prestigious research universities in the world, recently announced that it is beginning to undertake the start of looking for funding and facilities for such research. Sasselov, one of the scientists involved, stated that this kind of research could not have been conducted even five years ago.

And yet despite this dearth of knowledge, there are those who confidently claim that abiogenesis could never have occurred. That may be a true statement, but it is most decidedly not a scientific statement.

in matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision . . . we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it.

[1] L. A. Paquette, R. J. Ternansky, D. W. Balogh and G. Kentgen, Total Synthesis of Dodecahedrane, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1982, 105, 5446.
The chemical transliteration of Plato's universe - the dodecahedrane- has been synthesized in 23 steps. The key stages of the sequence starting from dichloro diester 2 involve the following: (a) reduction-monoalkylation of 2 using chloromethyl phenyl ether to give 7; (b) photocyclization of aldehyde 12 without interference from the geminal side chain; (c) retro-aldol cleavage of keto aldehyde 15; and (d) catalytic dehydrogenation of 19.


[2] H. W. Kroto (one of two other co-recipients of Nobel Prize with Smalley) The Post-Buckminsterfullerene Horizon, J. Chem. Soc. Dalton Trans. 1992 p 2141-2143
"The discovery, in 1985, that C60 Buckminsterfullerene forms spontaneously was a surprise to most chemists and for a few a somewhat difficult proposal to accept..."
"It might have been thought that entropy factors should preclude the spontaneous formation of so symmetric a species, after all the creation of C20H20 (20-hydrofullerene-20) by Paquette's group had been a synthetic tour de force."


[3] http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureat ... press.html
The discovery of carbon atoms bound in the form of a ball is rewarded
New forms of the element carbon - called fullerenes - in which the atoms are arranged in closed shells was discovered in 1985 by Robert F. Curl, Harold W. Kroto and Richard E. Smalley.
In 1990 physicists W. Krätschmer and D.R. Huffman for the first time produced isolable quantities of C60 by causing an arc between two graphite rods to burn in a helium atmosphere and extracting the carbon condensate so formed using an organic solvent. They obtained a mixture of C60 and C70, the structures of which could be determined.
The discovery of the unique structure of the C60 was published in the journal Nature and had a mixed reception - both criticism and enthusiastic acceptance. No physicist or chemist had expected that carbon would be found in such a symmetrical form other than those already known.
He [Kroto] got in touch with Richard E. Smalley, whose research was in cluster chemistry, an important part of chemical physics. A cluster is an aggregate of atoms or molecules, something in between microscopic particles and macroscopic particles.
The Platonic bodies have often served as patterns, and hydrocarbons had already been synthesised as tetrahedral, cubic or dodecahedral (12-sided) structures.


[4] http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:bRi ... =clnk&cd=5
1665 Philosophical Transactions Royal Society London
1789 Annales de Chimie et de Physique
1879 Journal of the American Chemical Society


[5] http://www.boston.com/news/science/arti ... ?page=full
Harvard University is launching a broad initiative to discover how life began, joining an ambitious scientific assault on age-old questions that are central to the debate over the theory of evolution.
Known as the ''Origins of Life in the Universe Initiative," the project is still in its early stages, and fund-raising has not begun, the scientists said.
Like intelligent design, the Harvard project begins with awe at the nature of life, and with an admission that, almost 150 years after Charles Darwin outlined his theory of evolution in the Origin of Species, scientists cannot explain how the process began.

Now, encouraged by a confluence of scientific advances -- such as the discovery of water on Mars and an increased understanding of the chemistry of early Earth -- the Harvard scientists hope to help change that.
''We start with a mutual acknowledgment of the profound complexity of living systems," said David R. Liu, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard. But ''my expectation is that we will be able to reduce this to a very simple series of logical events that could have taken place with no divine intervention."

[6]http://www.thecrimson.harvard.edu/print ... ref=508427
Sasselov said that, from both a scientific and educational perspective, now is an optimal time to confront the question of how life formed. New technology, especially in molecular biology, chemistry, and astronomy, has allowed researchers to study the topic in ways previously impossible.

“Why didn't people do it 10 years ago, five years ago? The reason why has to do with the ability technically to do thing that were not possible before,” Sasselov said. “They all involve new technology and state of the art methodology.”


[7]http://www.chem.unc.edu/people/faculty/ ... feb05.html

[tyler_demerhcant]

I am sorry, what is abiogenesis?

[August]

Abiogenesis is the emergence of life from non-life by naturalistic processes.

[tyler_demerhcant]

I am confused, is this then in support of creation or against?

Either way, I don't understand the statement. Non-life chemicle reactions do not produce living specimens. Nor do they create new elements that do not already exist. How can these articles have anything to do with abiogenesis.