Diamonds hint at Life on newborn Earth
- added July 5, 2008
- 13 responses
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- rwylie
- added this
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Ancient diamond crystals may show traces of life a staggering 750 Million years ealier than previously thought.
Analysis of the crystals, contained in zircons from Western Australia formed more than 4.25 Billion years ago, showed the presence of 'carbon-12', a 'light' isotope of carbon which is most commonly produced by plants and bacteria. Writing in the journal Nature one of the authors, Dr. Martin Whitehouse, believes that the carbon-12 found in the diamonds "could be interpreted as biogenic because we know that biological processes do generate light carbon isotopes.".
However these findings, while intriguing, are far from conclusive, as there are other non-biological processes which can form carbon-12. Furthermore, sceptics are worried that the carbon may be the result of later contamination, or even that it may not even be terrestrial, but rather was brought to earth on a meteorite.
But mineralogist Thorsten Geisler, from the University of Münster, is more optimistic; arguing that while non-biogenic chemical reactions can create carbon-12, the relative abundance observed in the diamonds is not what would be expected for a completely non-biogenic origin..
While these observations alone cannot prove the existence of life absolutely, it does offer a tantalising possibility: that life on Earth was already underway in what Geologists refer to as the 'Hadean' period (see image); a time when the planet was still cooling, and was under constant bombardment from meteorites. It was previously thought that life could not possibly have originated in such a hostile environment. Furthermore, this discovery could reduce the amount of time that life had to originate after the Earth was formed, which now could be as little as 300 Million years, where before it was thought to be at least a billion.
This discovery also does not rule out the possibility that rather than originating here, life on Earth was actually 'seeded' by being carried onboard a meteorite.
Analysis of the crystals, contained in zircons from Western Australia formed more than 4.25 Billion years ago, showed the presence of 'carbon-12', a 'light' isotope of carbon which is most commonly produced by plants and bacteria. Writing in the journal Nature one of the authors, Dr. Martin Whitehouse, believes that the carbon-12 found in the diamonds "could be interpreted as biogenic because we know that biological processes do generate light carbon isotopes.".
However these findings, while intriguing, are far from conclusive, as there are other non-biological processes which can form carbon-12. Furthermore, sceptics are worried that the carbon may be the result of later contamination, or even that it may not even be terrestrial, but rather was brought to earth on a meteorite.
But mineralogist Thorsten Geisler, from the University of Münster, is more optimistic; arguing that while non-biogenic chemical reactions can create carbon-12, the relative abundance observed in the diamonds is not what would be expected for a completely non-biogenic origin..
While these observations alone cannot prove the existence of life absolutely, it does offer a tantalising possibility: that life on Earth was already underway in what Geologists refer to as the 'Hadean' period (see image); a time when the planet was still cooling, and was under constant bombardment from meteorites. It was previously thought that life could not possibly have originated in such a hostile environment. Furthermore, this discovery could reduce the amount of time that life had to originate after the Earth was formed, which now could be as little as 300 Million years, where before it was thought to be at least a billion.
This discovery also does not rule out the possibility that rather than originating here, life on Earth was actually 'seeded' by being carried onboard a meteorite.
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of course so now ist extra terestrial so lets fund another waste of time to space to find the source of the metiorite
whuile people starve in the world lets go play star wars looking for diamonds -
Try putting a bunch of small parts into a bucket then shake the bucket. When you are done shaking will you have a working clock or,a toy train or mabye a blender?
Think about life outside the realm of evolution outside the realm of creation.
The unparralled fact that we are able to ask the question is the answer we need to be looking for. -
Could you clarify what you mean by "outside the realm of creation?"
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Yeah rywlie Its confusing for me most of all.
Evolution or Creation does not matter unless you are in Sunday School or Science Class.
Life happens with a heat source and molecules that are arranged correctly. Actual spirit happens when we are able to ask why, who how, where, how many ect.
We could have evolved in a million different ways. Look at the shark, an eating machine. What had to go wrong for humans to be so different than any other living thing on the planet. Evolution or Creation does not fully explain what happened or where we are going.
If we can ever get a handle on this I think we will be alot closer to getting our balance back on this planet. -
Excellent response rwylie, I understand where you are coming from. Please elaborate on your view of our evolution process.
I'm still stuck on why we would not have evovled to be a better hunter gatherers and worse philosophers. There is no real survival purpose for being intelligent. Many life forms from single cell to alligators have been doing ok for alot longer than we have.
Something is out of place with the human race. Curiously I believe it is an over abundance of free will combined with a lack of responsibility, but what in the name of evolution would have caused that. -
Good question, it's certainly good for us that we did though!
You're right in that having our level of intelligence is not the only way to be a good survivor; for example bacteria are the most numerous and successful life on Earth, and don't even really have a brain!
The short answer is, scientists don't even pretend to know. Some theories are that our ancestors developed more powerful brains to make more effective tools. In other words, this need for better tools required them to apply what we would see as reasoning to inanimate objects to make e.g. knives or spears.
What is clear however is that we have taken intelligence further than any other ape on earth, and have become fully conscious. One quite attractive theory is that we evolved brains with such efficient reasoning power, that we eventually started to reason about ourselves, which is part of what consciousness is.
I love being intelligent, and am very glad we have the chance to experience life in this way. I think it's exciting that intelligence in itself could have evolved in many different ways, and yet we seem to be the only species who have it.
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