We are a 🇫🇷 @univAMU + @CNRS research group dedicated to the study of primordial enzymes, reactive minerals, and the emergence of life! Open to collaboration!
We here review the extraordinary mineralogical properties of #greenrusts and their naturally occurring form, #fougerite, and discuss the pertinence of these properties within the alkaline hydrothermal vent (AHV) hypothesis for life's emergence.
https://t.co/CEa6g9HUDa
We have successfully achieved electrochemical ammonia synthesis by N2 reduction coupled with H2 oxidation in continuous-flow reactor at 1 bar and room temperature. When the gas-phase NH3 trapped in the HCl solution was evaporated, high-purity NH4Cl was obtained. It's amazing! 😎
Too excited to see these amazing measurements leading to such a nice model published in @NatureComms in collaboration with our colleagues from @LGLTPE - such a fun time using the FIB-SEM of @IPGP_officiel to open up fluid inclusions and reveal live all their organic treasures
My 1st paper!🥳 We look at metal sorption's effect on the transformation of #greenrust to #magnetite. Our findings imply that metal content in banded iron formations may not accurately reflect ancient marine chemistry given a GR-precursor. @Rutgers_Enigma
https://t.co/mXojdjVcv4
It’s cold out there, but not as cold as Europa (roughly -280 F on surface)! Here’s time-lapse from inside our Ark chamber showing water freezing under partial vacuum as we prepared an experiment. Happy holidays from the Ocean Worlds Lab:
Tuesday morning please check out our PhD candidate @orionfarr and his @theAGU oral presentation on reactive iron mineral interactions with methane! Session B22A-07 #AGU#greenrust
We also introduce a new mechanism by which NO molecules may have reached deeper ocean zones by Fe mineral shuttling. W. Nitschke, M. Russell and others have been arguing for years that NO was an essential e acceptor on early Earth and our study supports the geochemistry for this.
In the 70s and 80s works by Yung, McKay and others showed nitrogen could have been fixed abiotically in the Archean atmosphere. In 2017, I. Halevy proposed a dominance of green rust minerals in the early ocean. In our new article out today @NatureGeosci we combined both concepts.
THIS THING IS REAL!! The first time I saw one of these get added to the project I had to do a double take. This is Bassia bassenensis, an unbelievably shaped siphonophore that is bioluminescent and turns bright white when threatened.
📸: luca_dt on @inaturalist