What are the sources of these important sea minerals? It is believed that when life first appeared, the earth was composed of only land and sea. The earth's surface was not as stable as it is today and was likely undergoing tremendous crustal upheaval, such as extensive volcanic activity, both on land and under the sea. Rain is also believed to have fallen with more intensity than it does today. These hypotheses indicate that sea minerals could have originated from rock on the land surface.
Minerals extracted from a wide variety of rocks may give us clues to previously unknown properties of the rocks and to the conditions that led to the creation of life.
Let us imagine the world as it was when life first appeared. Traditional opinions and ideas that have pervaded research have failed in accurately reproducing conditions for that time. We must now seek a new perspective for our experiments.
When life first appeared, there was only land, sea, air, and sunlight. What is most lacking in today's research is information about the land at that time. Land is composed of rock, which in turn is composed of minerals. What little research that has been actively concerned with minerals is exemplified by the work of Cairns Smith [1]. However, he was only concerned with solid minerals, i.e. clays. Because life appeared out of the complex interactions between land, sea, air, and sunlight, it is necessary for us to expand our perspective to include the dissolution of solid materials.
At the time of the origin of life, what led to the appearance of important organic compounds for the biosphere is (a) the extraction of minerals from rock and (b) the occurrence of photoreactions as the composition of the atmosphere was being altered. If these conditions can be reproduced, undoubtedly it will lead to humanity's greatest achievement, the creation of life. With emphasis on the rock that makes up the land, this research will verify, through a condensed time frame, the entire process from the appearance of various organic compounds to the birth of life, under the present natural environment on the earth, not under extremely high pressure or high temperature.
2. Minerals extracted from rock and their structure
2.1. Methods for extracting minerals from rock and properties of these minerals
We extracted minerals from granite, basalt, and serpentine. For each rock, we first pulverized it to about a 50-mesh size. We then dissolved the rock with a 30 sulfic acid solution. The reaction was allowed to continue for 1 h at 100. The solids were then separated from the liquid using a filter with roughly a 15 /μm filter.
Table 1 shows the elemental analyses of the minerals extracted under the above conditions. Compared with the other elements, abnormal amounts of Al, Fe, and Mg were extracted.
