Iron is essential for the evolution of complex life on Earth – and the potential for life on other worlds
Researchers have discovered the importance of iron in the development of complex life on Earth, which may also indicate the possibility of complex life on other planets.
Iron is an essential nutrient for the growth and prosperity of almost all life.
The amount of iron in Earth’s rocky mantle is regulated by the conditions under which the planet formed, and this has serious consequences for how life evolved.
Now, researchers at the University of Oxford have discovered the most likely mechanism by which iron influenced the evolution of complex life forms, which can be used to determine how likely (or not) life forms are advanced on other planets.
The study was recently published in the journal PNAS.
The initial amount of iron in Earth’s rocks is tuned “by planetary accretion conditions, in which Earth’s mineral core is separated from the rocky mantle,” said co-author John Wade, professor of planetary materials at the University of Oxford.
“The lack of iron in rocky parts of the planet, such as Mercury, makes life unbearable.”
It is difficult to hold water on the surface for the time associated with the development of complex life if there is a lot of it, such as. “
Initially, the conditions for iron on Earth were ideal for water retention at the surface.
Iron dissolves in seawater, making it available to provide simple life forms that play a role in competition.
However, about 2.4 billion years ago (dubbed the “Great Oxygen Event”), oxygen levels on Earth began to rise.
Excess oxygen causes a reaction with iron, making it insoluble.
Gigatons of iron are taken from the sea, which makes life forms not easy to develop.
“Life has to find new ways to get the iron it needs,” said co-author Hal Draxsmith, Professor of Iron Biology at Oxford University’s MRC Weather Institute for Molecular Medicine.
“Infection, symbiosis and multicellularity, for example, are behaviors that allow life to capture and use these rare but essential nutrients more efficiently.”
Adopting such traits would hasten the evolution of early life forms into what we see today…
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