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[Music]

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[Applause]

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thank you very much I'm sorry I'm not

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Benton Clark he gives great talks he's a

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big thinker and has a lot to say he's

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been involved in the Mars exploration

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program since the Viking mission so it's

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a little sad that he's not here so what

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you're looking at is ATP synthase it's a

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huge molecule equivalent mass of 50,000

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carbon atoms it sits in the in the wall

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of cells and it takes protons which are

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concentrated at the bottom in this

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picture they they rotate the that stem

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and they changes the conformation of the

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top and it takes and the the ATP ADP and

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phosphate are in this more dilute

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solution they get captured by the

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rotating molecule and it produces an ATP

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adp to ATP this this molecule is or

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something very close to it is present in

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virtually every living thing that's how

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we how everything produces the energy

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molecule adenosine triphosphate that is

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used in many many reactions so it's a

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really fundamental molecule so the next

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picture is is flipped unfortunately so

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the rotating part is on the bottom now

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the concentration of protons is at the

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top and the reason I put this up here is

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that this ATP synthase is a huge

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molecule and it's required by everything

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and it uses the flow of protons this

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time from the top to the bottom to make

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the ATP what was missing in the first

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picture is how that proton concentration

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happens and all living things today have

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a set of molecules that in in the cell

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wall these that create that

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flux of protons and so you might ask

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well which came first these this this

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complex that produces the ATP or the the

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sequence of other molecules that produce

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the gradient and people who have thought

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about this long before me said well I

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think you've got to have this first to

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make the ATP and so something else and

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this had become second so something else

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had to produce this concentration of

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protons in the environment so I just

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want to say when this all when ATP

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appeared so it's shared by everything up

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here and so that it and things there are

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things that precede that are not shared

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up here like this the type of cell wall

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it's different between these so

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something happened here ATP synthase the

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genetic code other things happened over

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3 billion years ago and our last common

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ancestor is in this region too so our

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last common answer universal common

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answers also had ATP synthase so the

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people have been thinking about what

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came first the ATP synthase or the the

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gener are the are the system that

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produces the proton gradient started

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thinking about this and recently some

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colleagues of mine and I started

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thinking about it as well that the

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common thinking is that here on the

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mid-atlantic ridge you get a natural

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gradient of protons by the mixing of

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hydrothermal waters and it's a widely

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cited widely talked about mechanism so

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my colleagues and I have been talking

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about another mechanism which I want to

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spend a little more time on here in am a

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different Ridge system so this is the

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model of Russell Martin Nick Lane in

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which the here

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is a the lost city chimneys these are

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massive ten tens of meters high they're

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made out of carbonate and they funnel

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high pH water from the sea floor some of

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the bottle in the crust up through these

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chimneys out into seawater and so the

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seawater pH there is about seven and a

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half this is this is 10 so you right

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where this mixing occurs here this is

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this this is a little section of the

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carbonate chimney and this is only about

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three centimeters across the the high pH

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fluid is coming through here and mixing

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in this region right at the edge of the

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chimney so you got two two and a half

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units of pH difference right here so

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lots of protons here not many protons

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here if you had a little chamber in this

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region you could write for Bruce proton

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flux a natural proton flux which is what

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people are looking for so this is their

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model so here's that here's the chimney

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here's a protocell a self-assembling

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membrane and here's the high the low pH

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high proton concentration on the outside

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here's the vent water down here pH 10

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and this protocell sits between and if

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you were to put some sort of proto

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mechanism for converting the photon flux

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into an energy molecule it would sit in

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the in this cell sit in this cell wall

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for this proto cell wall that's the the

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model for hide the thermal chimneys so

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the one that we came up with was uses a

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system which is which is vast on the in

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the oceans this ocean crust aquifer

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covers about 60% of the Earth's surface

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in the sea here are some details this

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one on the Juan de Fuca Ridge is 64

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degrees there's no oxygen pH seven and a

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half which is not too different from

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seawater it also has some traces of

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compounds that are important for life

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and in there we think the the natural

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proton gradient is formed so I didn't

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bring up this big chunk of basalt which

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I brought with me is on the seafloor

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there are these really heavy dark black

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rocks which for now almost twenty years

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now we've been talking about these

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little tunnels that form inside the rock

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so this big chunk of rock has cracks

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through it and starting at the cracks

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there are tunnels that extend out into

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the glass so this is solid material this

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is an open fracture which would have

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water in it and these tunnels have

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formed somehow the consider I wouldn't

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say the consensus a lot of people think

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they're biological they may not be but I

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think they are so the question that we

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were approaching was how do these things

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form and what is what is going on in

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this dark region that we can't really

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see very well so oh yeah back up just a

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second so if you were able to if you cut

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one of these tunnels in half or across

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there and look at it in detail it looks

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like this so this is the solid rock

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solid volcanic rock glass this is the

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interior of the tunnel and this is all a

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fibrous porous phyllosilicate clay and

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this barrier here somehow forms along

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that tunnel and it's woops I see but I

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didn't do something wrong here

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so the alteration of volcanic glass to

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clay happens by the replacement of all

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the cations in the glass by protons so

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all of this used to be have a lot of

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elements in it that are now gone a lot

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of calcium magnesium iron maybe sodium

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and potassium they're all gone and

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you end up with this silicon aluminum

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silicate sodium oxide silicate and they

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grow you can see by their length they

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grow lengthwise they do not grow wider

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as time goes on and I think it's because

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there's no alteration out here this this

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thing is a barrier three minutes okay so

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this is how the glass is altered

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you've got protons on the outside they

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are moving across the boundary they are

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replacing cations on the inside you have

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a proton flux into the rock and so what

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we've said is that okay here's that

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here's a drawing of that fracture the

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water in here here's the glass here's

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the rock and here's a cell we were just

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hypothetically put a cell on the surface

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of the fracture and it's the the protons

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they're moving into this tunnel now they

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moved to the end they go into the rock

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they replace sodium potassium magnesium

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calcium so that you have a flux of

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protons from this pH seven water out

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into the rock and if you look at the the

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normal rate at which a rock will

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dissolve in in seawater at pH seven and

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a half and 50 to 60 degrees which is

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what the temperature is of that aquifer

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you can then these measures have been

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made by other people

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workers and useless inin in Iceland you

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can determine that for the area of the

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end of this tunnel you're moving 10,000

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protons a second into that rock and

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you're getting equivalent charge out of

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that rock back through here this cell

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then is in the position to harvest the

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energy of 10,000 protons a second it's a

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it's it's a significant amount of energy

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so this the cell makes it this barrier

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here on the surface the protons enter

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the glass

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Tunnel is initiated and probably wasn't

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a tunnel to begin with it just a little

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indentation here pH in the tunnel rises

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to 9.8 they form the clay that you saw

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in that picture and the the potential

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across here due to the 7.5 29.8 pH

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difference is 100 - 120 milli hundred

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and twenty-eight millivolts

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that's a big charge and it's very

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similar to what is produced in cells

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when they make their own proton gradient

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with those three little molecules I was

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pointing out early on and the power the

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power to the cell is 3 times 10 to the

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minus 16 joules per second per cell

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because of this proton flux the the

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minimum energy needed for a cell is

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probably somewhere around 10 to the

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minus 20 joules per second so you've got

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several orders of magnitude more energy

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from this process than the minimum so

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the the main points the tunnels in the

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basalt they must grow longer and they

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don't get wider they're a channel for

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protons so they diffuse from water down

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the tunnel out into the glass and the

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cell at the entrance would generate

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would be able to generate ATP from that

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flux so what are the implications these

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water to basalt proton gradients had to

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be available on earth from the time the

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earth formed when there were solid rock

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on the surface and water this could have

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been going on since the beginning of the

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planet there have been tunnels very

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similar to the ones I showed you in

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three-and-a-half billion year old the

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salts on earth so if those are

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equivalent which is evidence for life at

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three-and-a-half billion based on the

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same mechanism there's also one martian

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type of martian meteor that has some

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tunnels very similar I don't know where

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to go with that

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and based on recent discoveries of

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exoplanets with rock and want that have

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rock and water maybe 25% of the planets

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near us could use this mechanism to

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generate energy to drive metabolism

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that's it we have time for one quick

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yeah so yeah the question was why is it

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just one cell and no it doesn't the

257
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whole surface I I didn't explain

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everything I think that's a really good

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point but I think the cell must control

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its local environment by laying down a

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proton impermeable layer around it so

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that the protons have to go through the

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cell because if you're if what you if

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they didn't do that they were just

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totally erode the surface and you would

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have no no tunnels so I think there must

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be another component which was actually

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drawn in the in the model but I didn't

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have time to talk about it there's a

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poster tonight 7 o'clock if you want to

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have time for one more question

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yes

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that could be and so the questions about

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thinking about energy in Broadway so I'm

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thinking about the potential across the

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yeah yeah please discuss later thank you