From Fossils to Astrobiology: Records of Life on Earth and Search for Extraterrestrial Biosignatures (Cellular Origin, Life in Extreme Habitats and Astrobiology, Volume 12)

532 Pages·2009·8.8 MB·English

by  Seckbach J.

FROM FOSSILS TO ASTROBIOLOGY
Cellular Origin, Life in Extreme Habitats and Astrobiology
Volume 12
Series Editor :
Joseph Seckbach
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
For other titles published in this series, go to
www.springer.com/series/5775
From Fossils to Astrobiology
Records of Life on Earth and Search
for Extraterrestrial Biosignatures
Edited by
Joseph Seckbach
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
and
Maud Walsh
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
Editors
Joseph Seckbach Maud Walsh
Hebrew University of Jerusalem School of Plant,
Israel Environmental, and Soil Sciences
University, Baton Rouge,
LA, USA
ISBN 978-1-4020-8836-0 e-ISBN 978-1-4020-8837-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008933212
© 2009 Springer Science + Business Media B.V.
No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or
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the work.
Cover illustration:
Upper left: NGC 6188, a dust cloud in Ara OB1 association, which sprawls across the edge of an expanding
bubble of gas that could be as much as 300 light years wide. Photo courtesy of Don Goldman.
http://www.astrodon.com/_img/image/gallery/2/NGC6188Web4.jpg
Upper right:: Solar system montage of Voyager images. Photo courtesy of NASA. Center: JPL. Image
# PIA-02973.
http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/GPN-2003-000006.html
Middle left: Hot spring in Yellowstone National Park Lower Geyser Basin White Creek area.
Photograph by Maud Walsh
Middle right A spiny acritarch, Meghystrichosphaeridium reticulatum, preserved in 635-551 million
year old phosphorite of the Doushantuo Formation at Weng’an in South China. Photograph by
Shuahai Xiao.
Photo at the bottom: Intertidal stromatolites in Hamelin Pool, Shark Bay, Western Australia. Courtesy
of B.P. Burns and B.A. Neilan (see their chapter in this volume).
Printed on acid-free paper
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
springer.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS1
Foreword/Joseph Seckbach and Maud Walsh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Introduction/A Roadmap to Fata Morgana Wladyslaw Altermann . . . xv
List of Authors and Their Addresses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxix
GEOLOGY
PART 1:
FOSSILS AND FOSSILIZATION
Nanosims Opens a New Window for Deciphering Organic Matter
in Terrestrial and Extraterrestrial Samples
[Oehler, D.Z. et al.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Disentangling the Microbial Fossil Record in the Barberton
Greenstone Belt: A Cautionary Tale [Walsh, M.M.
and Westall, F.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Looking Through Windows onto the Earliest History of Life
on Earth and Mars [Wacey, D. et al.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Models for Silicate Fossils of Organic Materials in the
Astrobiological Context [Kolb, V.M. and Liesch, P.J.]. . . . . . . . . . 69
Microfossil Phosphatization and Its Astrobiological
Implications [Shuhai Xiao and Schiffbauer, J.D.]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Proterozoic Unicellular and Multicellular Fossils from
India and Their Implications [Tewari, V.C.]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
PART 2:
STROMATOLITES, MICROBIAL MATS, AND BIOFILMS
Microbial Communities of Stromatolites [Brendan, B.P. et al.]. . . . . . . 143
Biosedimentological Processes That Produce Hot Spring Sinter
Biofabrics: Examples from the Uzon Caldera, Kamchatka
Russia [Goin, J.C. and Cady, S.L.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Cyanobacterial Mat Features Preserved in the Siliciclastic
Sedimentary Record: Paleodeserts and Modern Supratidal
Flats [Porada, H. and Eriksson, P.G.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
1 The editors thank Professor Julian Chela-Flores for his suggestions for sections and
chapter arrangements.
v
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
Deciphering Fossil Evidence for the Origin of Life and the Origin
of Animals: Common Challenges in Different Worlds
[Antcliffe, J. and McLoughlin, N.]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
BIOLOGY
PART 3:
TERRESTRIAL MICROBES AS ANALOGS FOR LIFE
ELSEWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE
Microorganisms in the Ancient Terrestrial Subsurface – And in
Outer Space? [Stan-Lotter, H. et al.]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Evidence of Ancient Microbial Life in an Impact Structure
and Its Implications for Astrobiology:
A Case Study [Hode, T. et al.]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Phylogenomic Dating and the Relative Ancestry of Prokaryotic
Metabolisms [Blank, C.E.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Fossil Microorganisms at Methane Seeps: An Astrobiological
Perspective: Astrobiology of Methane Seeps [Barbieri, R.
and Cavalazzi, B.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Endoliths in Terrestrial Arid Environments: Implications
for Astrobiology [Stivaletta, N. and Barbieri, R.]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Magnetotactic Bacteria and Their Potential for Terraformation
[Ardelean, I.I. et al.]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
PART 4:
EVOLUTION AND ASTROBIOLOGY
Paleontological Tests: Human-Like Intelligence Is Not
a Convergent Feature of Evolution [Lineweaver, C.H.]. . . . . . . . . 353
Cosmic Life Forms [Grandpierre, A.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
SPACE SCIENCES
PART 5:
ASTRONOMICAL AND COSMOLOGICAL
CONSIDERATIONS IN ASTROBIOLOGY
Astronomical and Astrobiological Imprints on the Fossil Records:
A Review [Chela-Flores, J. et al.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
Do Impacts Really Cause Most Mass Extinctions?
[Prothero, D.R.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
Irradiation of Icy Cometary Analogs: Its Relevance
in Reference to Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life
[Colin-Garcia, M. et al.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425
TABLE OF CONTENTS vii
The Big Bang at Time Zero [Bahn, P.R. and Pravdo, S.H.] . . . . . . . . . . 443
Molecular Imprints of Reaction Network: Living or Non-living
[Matsuno, A.]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
PART 6:
THE SEARCH FOR EVIDENCE OF LIFE ON MARS
The ALH84001 Case for Life on Mars [Davila, A.F. et al.]. . . . . . . . . . 471
Preservation Windows for Paleobiological Traces in the Mars Geological
Record [Fernández-Remolar, D.C. et al.]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491
PART 7:
OUTLOOK AND SUMMARY
Summary, Final Comments and Conclusions [Seckbach, J. et al.] . . . . 515
Organism Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521
Subject Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523
Author Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
FOREWORD
From Fossils to Astrobiology: Records of Life on Earth and Search for Extra-
terrestrial Biosignatures
Astrobiology, the study of life in the universe, draws on many traditional areas of
scientific study, including astronomy, chemistry and planetary science. This vol-
ume, number 12 in the CellularOrigin, Life in Extreme Habitats and Astrobiology
series (published by Springer) focuses on the study of the record of life on planet
Earth, which is critical in guiding investigations in the rest of the cosmos, as well
the evidence for and likelihood of extraterrestrial life. The 30 contributors to this
volume are experts from 16 different countries: Australia; Austria; France;
Germany; Hungary; India; Israel; Italy; Japan; Mexico; Norway; Romania;
South Africa; Spain; Sweden, United Kingdom; the United States of America.
The editors thank the authors for their contributions and their cooperation
during the compilation of this volume. We acknowledge the efforts of many indi-
viduals for their careful reviews of the chapters in this volume. Their names are
listed in alphabetical order: Wlady Altermann, Peter Bahn, Stefan Bengston,
Oliver Botta, Gary Byerly, Zachary Byerly, Jeffrey Chiaranzelli, Brent Christner,
Alexandra Davatzes, Stephen Dornbos, J. Peter Gogartner, Jessica Goin, Richard
Hugo, Hidrim Idriss, Carolina Keim, Joseph Lambert, Thomas Lindsay, Charles
Lineweaver, Andrew Melott, Lori Marino, Harold Morowitz, Jared Morrow,
Nora Noffke, Aharon Oren, Mary Parenteau, Russell Shapiro, Giovanni
Strazzulla, Jan Toporski, Sergey Tsokolov, Peter Ward, and Frances Westall. We
thank Shellie Miller and Maeghan Reese of Louisiana State University for their
assistance with organization and proofreading of manuscripts. MMW acknowl-
edges the support of the Louisiana Board of Regents/LaSPACE under the NASA
Space Training Grant award NNG05GH22H.
Joseph Seckbach Maud M. Walsh
Hebrew University of Jerusalem Louisiana State University
Jerusalem, Israel Baton Rouge, LA, USA
June 21, 2008
ix
Biodata of Joseph Seckbach, editor of this volume and author of “Foreword”
(both with M.M. Walsh) and the author with other coauthors of the “Summary
and Outlook”
Professor Joseph Seckbach is the founder and chief editor of Cellular Origins, Life
in Extreme Habitats and Astrobiology (COLE) book series. See: www.springer.com/
sereis/5775. He is the author of several chapters in this series. Dr. Seckbach earned
his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL (1965) and spent his post-
doctoral years in the Division of Biology at Caltech (Pasadena, CA). Then he
headed at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) a team for search-
ing for extraterrestrial life. He has been appointed to the faculty of the Hebrew
University (Jerusalem, Israel) performed algal research and taught biological
courses until his retirement. He spent his sabbatical periods in Tübingen
(Germany), UCLA and Harvard University, and served at Louisiana State
University (LSU) (1997/1998) as the first selected occupant of the John P. Laborde
endowed Chair for the Louisiana Sea Grant and Technology transfer, and as a
visiting Professor in the Department of Life Sciences at LSU (Baton Rouge, LA).
Recently (2006) he spent three months in Ludwig Maximilians University in
Munich with a DAAD fellowship from the German service of exchange academi-
cians, where several forward steps of this volume have been performed.
Among his publications are books, scientific articles concerning plant ferritin
(phytoferritin), cellular evolution, acidothermophilic algae, and life in extreme
environments. He also edited and translated several popular books. Dr. Seckbach
is the co-author (with R. Ikan) of the Chemistry Lexicon (1991, 1999) and other
volumes, such as co-editor for the Proceeding of Endocytobiology VII Conference
(Freiburg, Germany, 1998) and the Proceedings of Algae and Extreme Environments
meeting (Trebon, Czech Republic, 2000); see: http://www.schweizerbart.de/pubs/books/
bo/novahedwig-051012300-desc.ht). His new volume entitled Divine Action and
Natural Selection: Science, Faith, and Evolution, has been edited with Richard
Gordon and published by World Scientific Publishing Company. His recent interest
is in the field of enigmatic microorganisms and life in extreme environments.
E-mail:[email protected]
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