Mike PSS
Posts: 428
Joined: Sep. 2006
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Louis,
This is the point I need to do some more reading from the assigned list. The details of the next point of discussion start to get fuzzy in my mind because I lose sight of everything going on at once. Holiday reading I guess.
Sticking to the thermal vent environment might be helpful for the moment.
My initial thoughts about your 1) 2) 3) scenario are:
1) Plausible for carbs. Easy to polymerise and easy to find in the environment we're talking about. I think the polymer chemistry in this step is what will set up step 2) as a first Ur-replicator.
2) The polymerisation products in step 1) may form the encapsulation layer here. A branched polymer or co-polymer is an option to consider for incorporation within the encapsulation layer with one branch backbone adapting to the miscelle barrier and the other branch backbone internal and/or external to the barrier (the first resemblance of an interbarrier receptor). As new variants of polymer chains are included in the miscelle then new chemical reactive functions may appear depending on backbone structure and chain endings. Now we would have a system incorporating the full variety of organic chemistry in the vent environment.
3) The energy pump system is probably an Ionic Pump type found in cell functions today. The Ion source is produced in the vent or the exposed Fe catalyst source. One item I thought of is that the miscelle formation would change the water conditions inside the miscelle formed in 2) so that the Ionic Pump system has a greater energy release or different product mix (maybe moving the equilibrium or solubility of the products one way or the other). The Ionic Pump system would also have to maintain the internal miscelle conditions so that this reaction could be sustained.
Just musings for now. I'll see how good this holds up in the literature.
Mike PSS
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