Hydrogen Consumption by Methanogens on the Early Earth

Details Hydrogen Consumption by Methanogens on the Early Earth Hydrogen Consumption by Methanogens on the Early Earth

Jun 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998oleb...28..311k&link_type=abstract

Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, v. 28, Issue 3, p. 311-319 (1998).

Physics

24

Scientific paper

It is possible that the first autotroph used chemical energy rather than light. This could have been the main source of primary production after the initial inventory of abiotic organic material had been depleted. The electron acceptor most readily available for use by this first chemoautotroph would have been CO_2. The most abundant electron donor may have been H_2 that would have been outgassing from volcanoes at a rate estimated to be as large as 10^12 moles yr^-1, as well as from photo-oxidation of Fe^+2. We report here that certain methanogens will consume H_2 down to partial pressures as low as 4 Pa (4 × 10^-5 atm) with CO_2 as the sole carbon source at a rate of 0.7 ng H_2 min^-1 μg^-1 cell protein. The lower limit of pH_2 for growth of methanogens can be understood on the basis that the pH_2 needs to be high enough for one ATP to be synthesized per CO_2 reduced. The pH_2 values needed for growth measured here are consistent with those measured by Stevens and McKinley for growth of methanogens in deep basalt aquifers. H_2-consuming autotrophs are likely to have had a profound effect on the chemistry of the early atmosphere and to have been a dominant sink for H_2 on the early Earth after life began rather than escape from the Earth's atmosphere to space.

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