Grand challenge for low temperature and pressure geochemistry—sparks in the dark, on Earth, Mars, and throughout the Galaxy
Grand challenge for low temperature and pressure geochemistry—sparks in the dark, on Earth, Mars, and throughout the Galaxy
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低温低压地球化学的巨大挑战——黑暗中、地球、火星和整个银河系的火花
DOI：
10.3389/feart.2015.00069
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发表时间：
2015
影响因子：
2.9
通讯作者：
M. Tranter
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
M. Tranter
引用：Transter M(2015)低温和高压地球化学的重大挑战--在黑暗中、在地球、火星和整个银河系中产生火花。地球化学本身的性质是一个巨大的挑战，因为它有确定和深入了解地球、太阳系和其他地方的不同化学储存库形成并继续演变的机制的雄心(朗缪尔和布罗克，2012)。事实上，地球不太可能像我们所知的那样继续成为生命的栖息地，因为太阳作为一种能源正在衰落，化学物质不断从大气泄漏到太空中(卡斯廷，2010)。这可能还需要15亿年的时间，所以我们的后代有时间发现并殖民另一颗行星，而我们现在的低温和压力(LTP)地球化学家也有更多的乐趣，并在我们试图了解我们研究的无数相互关联的地球化学库是如何在时间和空间上演变的过程中发现魅力。生命是大多数(如果不是全部)地球表面或附近环境的重要地球化学驱动力。有一句谚语说，哪里有水，哪里就有生命(Priscu等人，1998年)，这是一个不言而喻的道理，微生物可以催化氧化还原反应，从而获得生命过程所需的能量(Madigan等人，2003年)。地球表面化学变化的旋转木马部分是由生命摆动的，一旦生命建立，生命就以多种形式持续存在(Holland，1984)。我们LTP地球化学家有幸观察到我们研究的化学库的组成，范围从亚纳米级的矿物原子之间的空间，到数千公里的大陆尺度，再到银河系中的光年。我们的时间尺度同样可以从高能反应的纳秒到宇宙中数十亿年的化学分化。有些人会说，对这些规模和时代的化学物质的兴趣是极客们没有灵魂的保留地。在它的深处，我们看到了激发我们想象力的火花，并让我们对我们研究的生物地球化学系统中的通量、变化和微生物多样性充满敬畏。这是另一句你永远不会停止学习的谚语：就在我们觉得我们对正在研究的系统有了很好的了解时，一些意想不到的同位素变化，异常的次要元素浓度…
Citation: Tranter M (2015) Grand challenge for low temperature and pressure geochemistry—sparks in the dark, on Earth, Mars, and throughout the Galaxy. The very nature of geochemistry is a grand challenge, since it has the ambition to identify and to gain an in depth understanding of the mechanisms by which the different chemical reservoirs on Earth, the Solar System and beyond, both formed and continue to evolve (Langmuir and Broecker, 2012). Indeed, Earth is unlikely to remain a viable habitat for life as we know it as the Sun declines as an energy source and chemicals continually leak from the atmosphere into space (Kasting, 2010). This may take another 1.5 billion years, so there is time for our descendants to find and colonize another planet, and for we current low temperature and pressure (LTP) geochemists to have a little more fun and find fascination in our attempts to understand how the myriad of interconnected geochemical reservoirs we study evolve over both time and space. Life is an important geochemical driver in most, if not all, of the environments at or near the Earth's surface. There is an adage that where there is water, there is life (Priscu et al., 1998), and it is a truism that microbes serve to catalyze REDOX reactions, gaining energy for vital processes as a consequence (Madigan et al., 2003). The merry-go-round of geochemical transformations at the Earth's surface is swung in part by life, which is persistent in many forms once it is established (Holland, 1984). We LTP geochemists have the privilege of observing the constitution of the chemical reservoirs we study, from scales that range from sub-nanometers, the spaces between atoms in minerals, to thousands of kilometers, the scale of continents, to light years in the galaxy. Our time scales can equally range from nanoseconds for high energy reactions to the billions of years of chemical differentiation within the Universe. Some would say that an interest in chemicals over these scales and times is the soulless preserve of geeks. We in the thick of it see sparks that trigger our imagination and fill us with awe of the fluxes, transformations, and microbial diversity in the biogeochemical systems that we research. It is another adage that you never stop learning: just when we feel that we have a good understanding of the systems we are studying, some unexpected isotope variation, an anomalous minor element concentration …
影响因子：
16.8
作者：
Anesio, Alexandre M.;Laybourn-Parry, Johanna
通讯作者：
Laybourn-Parry, Johanna