| Description: |
Hydrocarbons-molecules critical to life-are routinely generated by the simple interaction of seawater with the rocks under the Lost City hydrothermal vent field in the Atlantic Ocean, according to research led by the University of Washington and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). The production of such building blocks of life makes Lost City-like vents strong contenders as places where life might have originated on Earth, according to Giora Proskurowski and Deborah Kelley, two authors of a paper in the Feb. 1 issue of the journal Science. Researchers have ruled out carbon from the biosphere as a component of the hydrocarbons in Lost City vent fluids. [Source: WHOI Oceanus]
|
 |
