Deep Mantle-Atmosphere Coupling and Carbonaceous Bombardment: Options for Biomolecule Formation on an Oxidized Early Earth

Abstract

Understanding what environmental conditions prevailed on early Earth during the Hadean eon, and how this set the stage for the origins of life, remains a challenge. Geologic processes such as serpentinization and bombardment by chondritic material during the late veneer might have been very active, shaping an atmospheric composition reducing enough to allow efficient photochemical synthesis of HCN, one of the key precursors of prebiotic molecules. HCN can rain out and accumulate in warm little ponds (WLPs), forming prebiotic molecules such as nucleobases and the sugar ribose. These molecules could condense to nucleotides, the building blocks of RNA molecules, one of the ingredients of life. Here, we perform a systematic study of potential sources of reducing gases on Hadean Earth and calculate the concentrations of prebiotic molecules in WLPs based on a comprehensive geophysical and atmospheric model. We find that in a reduced H$_2$-dominated atmosphere, carbonaceous bombardment can produce enough HCN to reach maximum WLP concentrations of $\sim 1-10\,\mathrm{mM}$ for nucleobases and, in the absence of seepage, $\sim 10-100\,\mathrm{μM}$ for ribose. If the Hadean atmosphere was initially oxidized and CO$_2$-rich ($90\,\%$), we find serpentinization alone can reduce the atmosphere, resulting in WLP concentrations of an order of magnitude lower than the reducing carbonaceous bombardment case. In both cases, concentrations are sufficient for nucleotide synthesis, as shown in experimental studies. RNA could have appeared on Earth immediately after it became habitable (about $100\,\mathrm{Myr}$ after the Moon-forming impact), or it could have (re)appeared later at any time up to the beginning of the Archean.