Not really. The proposed production of prebiotic organics occurs at the surface where hydrothermal fluids which have interacted with mantle-derived rocks, becoming alkaline and producing hydrogen gas within the fluid by oxidizing ferrous iron during serpentinization, hit the acidic CO2-bearing ocean, and the pH gradient triggers redox reactions between the H2 and CO2 creating water methane and small organics most of which vent to the ocean. Reactive iron sulfide minerals also condense out under the same conditions and further encourage the redox reactions and electron transfer in a way similar to in living methanogenic organisms. The organics produced by experiments recapitulating these environments are more like formaldehyde, small carbs, and acetic acid (with various phosphorylated or thioester derivatives that allow them to interact in interesting ways). None of this really resembles Thomas Gold’s proposed and pretty well discredited ideas of high levels of promordial deep-mantle abiotic oil leakage driving large deep biospheres and would be concentrated locally within the pores of surface rocks at the vents themselves.
Granted, in this scenario once life escapes the vents by inventing its own way to locally create pH gradients and electron transfer, the early basal biosphere would be limited to chemolithotrophs exploiting redox gradients within rocks (potentially very deep but definitely limited in biomass) until something invents photosynthesis and would have started as thermophiles (though not hyperthermophiles), which were elements of his thoughts on the origin of life. It also fits with a point he made, that the origin of life should be thought of in a thermodynamic context.
So, Thomas Gold’s Deep Biology still struggles along....but now everyone else gets research funding on it. sigh.
Not really. The proposed production of prebiotic organics occurs at the surface where hydrothermal fluids which have interacted with mantle-derived rocks, becoming alkaline and producing hydrogen gas within the fluid by oxidizing ferrous iron during serpentinization, hit the acidic CO2-bearing ocean, and the pH gradient triggers redox reactions between the H2 and CO2 creating water methane and small organics most of which vent to the ocean. Reactive iron sulfide minerals also condense out under the same conditions and further encourage the redox reactions and electron transfer in a way similar to in living methanogenic organisms. The organics produced by experiments recapitulating these environments are more like formaldehyde, small carbs, and acetic acid (with various phosphorylated or thioester derivatives that allow them to interact in interesting ways). None of this really resembles Thomas Gold’s proposed and pretty well discredited ideas of high levels of promordial deep-mantle abiotic oil leakage driving large deep biospheres and would be concentrated locally within the pores of surface rocks at the vents themselves.
Granted, in this scenario once life escapes the vents by inventing its own way to locally create pH gradients and electron transfer, the early basal biosphere would be limited to chemolithotrophs exploiting redox gradients within rocks (potentially very deep but definitely limited in biomass) until something invents photosynthesis and would have started as thermophiles (though not hyperthermophiles), which were elements of his thoughts on the origin of life. It also fits with a point he made, that the origin of life should be thought of in a thermodynamic context.
I had a few paragraphs here, and links, and lost it all on posting. sigh.
well, here is a biological reactor for your enjoyment. in Russian tho...
http://kommersant.ru/doc/3101388