Follow the High Subcritical Water

Abstract

The expression “follow the water” is used to recognize inside the universe, life as it exists on Earth. It is shown here that the expression “follow the high subcritical water” can be used to recognize the components of life that formed prior to the emergence of life. It is also shown that this particular water leaves signatures inside rocks that are produced during high subcritical water–rock interactions. These signatures are ferric minerals, which are currently explained by the presence of microorganisms. The consideration of water in the high subcritical domain may lead to postpone the date of the existence of FeII-oxidizing and O2-producing microorganisms, and consequently the date of the appearance of oxygen in the atmosphere. Alkaline water at pH ~9.5 to 14 and in the specific domain of temperature ~300–350 °C, pressure ~10–25 MPa, and density ~700–600 kg/m3, allows us to understand the formation of silica and ferric minerals, and the synformation of components of life in anoxic geological terrains such as the banded iron formations on early Earth and extraterrestrial objects such as Enceladus. The high subcritical water lets appear the continuity between rocks and life, which is conceptualized by the word “geobiotropy”.

Methane, water, quartz, siderite, hematite, and possibly greenalite and sodium hydroxide in a BARB3 drilled sample of the 3.4 Ga Buck ReefChert. Crustal anoxic alkaline high subcritical water at the origin of the observed ferric minerals, methane and disordered graphitic carbon, and of plausible molecules of life

“…The blocks of fayalite can be positioned at a depth within ∼5 km of the surface, where pressure corresponds to the high subcritical domain of water, as calculated in (Bassez 2019a, Bassez 2022 Fig. 2).…”