1,156 research outputs found
The effect of sterilization on biological, organic geochemical and morphological information in natural samples
The loss of biological, organic geochemical, and morphological science information that may occur should a Mars surface sample be sterilized prior to return to earth is examined. Results of experimental studies are summarized
Reassessment of the Rates at which Oil from Natural Sources Enters the Marine Environment
Previous estimates of the world-wide input of oil to the marine environment by natural seeps ranged from 0 ·2 to 6 ·0 million (metric) tonnes per year with a \u27best estimate\u27 of 0 ·6 million tonnes per year. Based on considerations of the availability of oil for seepage from the world\u27s known and assumed oil resources, we believe that the world-wide natural oil seepage over geological time should be revised to about 0 ·2 million tonnes per ),ear with a range upward or downward of a factor of ten leading to estimates between 0 ·02 and 2 million tonnes per year. Our estimate of the amount of oil eroding from the land and being transported to the oceans is about 0 ·05 million tonnes per year with an order of magnitude uncertainty. Therefore, while the uncertainties are large, we estimate that the total amount of oil entering the marine environment by natural, geological processes, is about 0 ·25 million tonnes per year, and the estimate may range from about 0 ·025 to 2 ·5 million tonnes per year
Gas Phase Train in Upstream Oil & Gas Fields: PART-I Model Development
The prime contribution of this paper is to provide a large scale system (LSS) model for the gas phase operation in upstream oil and gas plants. The process model consists of the three main gas conditioning processes which exist in most upstream oil and gas processing plants; these are gas sweetening, gas dehydration, and hydrocarbon dew-pointing. The function of such a model is to provide a realistic process representation to test and verify different process control approaches, specifically those which deal with highly interactive control loops
Non-Fickian Diffusion Affects the Relation between the Salinity and Hydrate Capacity Profiles in Marine Sediments
On-site measurements of water salinity (which can be directly evaluated from
the electrical conductivity) in deep-sea sediments is technically the primary
source of indirect information on the capacity of the marine deposits of
methane hydrates. We show the relation between the salinity (chlorinity)
profile and the hydrate volume in pores to be significantly affected by
non-Fickian contributions to the diffusion flux---the thermal diffusion and the
gravitational segregation---which have been previously ignored in the
literature on the subject and the analysis of surveys data. We provide amended
relations and utilize them for an analysis of field measurements for a real
hydrate deposit.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, submitted to Compte Rendus Mecaniqu
Selective Adsorption and Chiral Amplification of Amino Acids in Vermiculite Clay -Implications for the origin of biochirality
Smectite clays are hydrated layer silicates that, like micas, occur naturally
in abundance. Importantly, they have readily modifiable interlayer spaces that
provide excellent sites for nanochemistry. Vermiculite is one such smectite
clay and in the presence of small chain-length alkyl-NH3Cl ions, forms
sensitive, 1-D ordered model clay systems with expandable nano-pore inter-layer
regions. These inter-layers readily adsorb organic molecules. N-propyl NH3Cl
vermiculite clay gels were used to determine the adsorption of alanine, lysine
and histidine by chiral HPLC. The results show that during reaction with fresh
vermiculite interlayers, significant chiral enrichment of either L- and
D-enantiomers occurs depending on the amino acid. Chiral enrichment of the
supernatant solutions is up to about 1% per pass. In contrast, addition to clay
interlayers already reacted with amino acid solutions resulted in little or no
change in D/L ratio during the time of the experiment. Adsorption of small
amounts of amphiphilic organic molecules in clay inter-layers is known to
produce Layer-by-Layer or Langmuir-Blodgett films. Moreover atomistic
simulations show that self-organization of organic species in clay interlayers
is important. These non-centrosymmetric, chirally active nanofilms may cause
clays to act subsequently as chiral amplifiers, concentrating organic material
from dilute solution and having different adsorption energetics for D- and
L-enantiomers. The additional role of clays in RNA oligimerization already
postulated by Ferris and others, together with the need for the organization of
amphiphilic molecules and lipids noted by Szostak and others, suggests that
such chiral separation by clays in lagoonal environments at normal biological
temperatures might also have played a significant role in the origin of
biochirality.Comment: 17 Pages, 2 Figures, 4 Table
2-Amino-5-methylpyridinium 2-hydroxybenzoate
In the title compound, C6H9N2
+·C7H5O3
−, the protonated 2-amino-5-methylpyridinium cation and the 2-hydroxybenzoate anion are both essentially planar, with maximum deviations of 0.026 (2) and 0.034 (1) Å, respectively. The anion is stabilized by an intramolecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bond, which forms an S(6) ring motif. In the solid state, the anions are linked to the cations via pairs of intermolecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds forming R
2
2(8) ring motifs. The crystal structure is further stabilized by N—H⋯O and C—H⋯O interactions which link the molecules into chains along [010]. A π–π stacking interaction [centroid–centroid-distance = 3.740 (2) Å] is also observed
Prebiotic Organic Microstructures
Micro- and sub-micrometer spheres, tubules and fiber-filament soft structures have been synthesized in our experiments conducted with 3 MeV proton irradiations of a mixture of simple inorganic constituents, CO, N2 and H2O. We analysed the irradiation products, with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). These laboratory organic structures produced wide variety of proteinous and non-proteinous amino acids after HCl hydrolysis. The enantiomer analysis for D-, L- alanine confirmed that the amino acids were abiotically synthesized during the laboratory experiment. Considering hydrothermal activity, the presence of CO2 and H2, of a ferromagnesian silicate mineral environment, of an Earth magnetic field which was much less intense during Archean times than nowadays and consequently of a proton excitation source which was much more abundant, we propose that our laboratory organic microstructures might be synthesized during Archean times. We show similarities in morphology and in formation with some terrestrial Archean microstructures and we suggest that some of the observed Archean carbon spherical and filamentous microstructures might be composed of abiogenic organic molecules. We further propose a search for such prebiotic organic signatures on Mars. This article has been posted on Nature precedings on 21 July 2010 [1]. Extinct radionuclides as source of excitation have been replaced by cosmic radiations which were much more intense 3.5 Ga ago because of a much less intense Earth magnetic field. The new version of the article has been presented at the ORIGINS conference in Montpellier in july 2011 [2] and has since been published in Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres 42 (4) 307-316, 2012. 
DOI: 10.1007/s11084-012-9290-5 


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