One side of the membrane is exposed to water in contact with the alkali ovaline rock. … Nick Lane proposes that LUCA was a membrane capped pore in an olavine rock.
Correction: Nick Lane never says the vent itself (in which the proto-cell membranes arose) was made of olivine. The olivine is far underground. Sinking seawater reacts with it (serpentinization) and bubbles back up. It precipitates out into the vents (mineralized sponge “chimneys”) which itself is not olivine.
Here’s what Wikipedia says about Lost City, which Lane gives as an example of a modern alkaline hydrothermal vent:
Once pore waters have permeated the surface and return to the surface, aragonite, brucite, and calcite chimneys are formed as calcium carbonates precipitate out of solution. Younger chimneys are primarily brucite and aragonite, being white and flaky in appearance.
Correction: Nick Lane never says the vent itself (in which the proto-cell membranes arose) was made of olivine. The olivine is far underground. Sinking seawater reacts with it (serpentinization) and bubbles back up. It precipitates out into the vents (mineralized sponge “chimneys”) which itself is not olivine.
Here’s what Wikipedia says about Lost City, which Lane gives as an example of a modern alkaline hydrothermal vent:
Thank you for the correction. I have changed “olavine rock” to “olavine vents”.