Chemical markers of prebiotic chemistry in hydrothermal systems

The goal of this chapter is to suggest some organic compounds which may be indicative of prebiotic processes in hydrothermal systems or laboratory simulations of them. While the exact processes which led to the origins of life are not known, studies of life's origins of the past forty years have uncovered a plethora of potential precursor molecules. Some of these same molecules were probably present in hydrothermal systems if chemical processes there had a role in the origins of life. The types of molecules formed in primitive Earth simulation experiments and observed in the interstellar medium, on comets and meteorites will be reviewed in Section 2 of this chapter. Some reactions involving these molecules which may have been important in prebiotic syntheses will be outlined. Since near- to supercritical water is found in hydrothermal systems, its properties and aspects of organic chemistry in supercritical water at high temperature and pressure will be discussed in Section 3. Fischer-Tropsch type (FTT) reactions, which are a potential source of the building blocks of biological molecules in hydrothermal systems, are discussed in Section 4. In the concluding section, Section 5, the possible formation in hydrothermal systems of organic molecules that are believed to have been important for the origins of life is discussed.