Biology
Scientific paper
Dec 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufm.p54a..01s&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #P54A-01
Biology
0444 Evolutionary Geobiology, 1023 Composition Of The Biosphere, 5200 Planetary Sciences: Astrobiology
Scientific paper
Hydrocarbon biomarker analysis is conventionally conducted on bitumen (soluble fossilized organic matter) extracted from sedimentary rocks using organic solvents. Biomarkers can also be generated by pyrolysis of kerogen (insoluble organic matter) in the same rocks. These approaches have met with much success where the organic matter has not seen significant levels of thermal metamorphism but more limited success when applied to thermally mature Archean rocks. Biomarkers have also been isolated from fluid inclusions of crystalline minerals and this approach has found wide application in petroleum exploration because of the capability of minerals that form crystals in reservoir rocks to trap organics from different episodes of fluid migration. Lastly, biogenic crystalline minerals are well known to trap organics including amino acids, fatty acids or hydrocarbons from those organisms that laid down the minerals. In fact, recent observations suggest that hydrocarbon biomarkers can be abundantly preserved in crystalline minerals where they may be protected over long periods of time and also distinguished from more recent generations of organics from endolithic organisms (modern) or anthropogenic (fossil hydrocarbon) contaminants. Here we report analyses of biomarker lipids trapped in fluid inclusions or otherwise having a "tight association" with the minerals in sedimentary rocks from Neoarchean and Paleoproterozoic successions in Australia and Southern Africa. In particular, cores recovered from the Agouron Griqualand Drilling Project contain over 2500m of well-preserved late Archean Transvaal Supergroup sediments, dating from ca. 2.67 to 2.46Ga. Bitumen extracts of samples from these strata were obtained using clean drilling, sampling and handling protocols and without overprinting with contaminant hydrocarbons. Dissolution of the mineral matrix of extracted sediments, followed by another solvent extraction, yielded a second bitumen that comprised hydrocarbons that had been, somehow, enclosed within or more tightly bound to clays or carbonates. Subtle and consistent compositional differences between the freely-extractable and tightly-bound hydrocarbons provide further evidence for their syngenetic nature. The research has further applicability to biomarker studies of Early Earth materials, returned planetary samples as well as robotic analyses on flight missions. On Mars, for example, organics trapped within crystals of evaporate minerals would be protected, to a large degree, from the deleterious effects of ionizing radiation and strong oxidants that are prevalent on Mars surface.
eaps.mit.edu/geobiology/
Carrasquillo A.
Hallmann Christian
Sherman Laura S.
Summons Roger E.
Waldbauer Jacob R.
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