Darwinian Evolution of Molecules by Hiromoto Nakazawa

Author:Hiromoto Nakazawa
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Springer Singapore, Singapore

4.5 Hypothesis: Mass Production of Ammonia During Meteorite–Ocean Collisions on the Early Earth

The collision experiment described above (Sect. 4.4) confirmed that meteorites composed of metallic iron and olivine and seafloor co-evaporate with a large amount of seawater when a meteorite collides with the ocean. It is consequently thought that a large quantity of ammonia could have been produced by the following process: reductive substances such as metallic iron evaporated in the post-impact plume reacted with oxygen from decomposed water, so that the post-impact plume became strongly reducing due to the prevalence of hydrogen. Under these conditions, nitrogen contained in the locality ought to be reduced to ammonia by reaction with hydrogen because iron, which is the catalyst employed in the similar Haber–Bosch ammonia synthesis process, was suspended in large quantities in the post-impact plume as ultrafine particles. The reaction is as follows:

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