Mineral interface in extreme habitats: A niche for primitive molecular evolution for the appearance of different forms of life on Earth

Innumerable primitive membrane and protocell models in latter stages of chemical evolution are based on the properties of minerals' interfaces with primitive seawater. The ordering mechanism induced by mineral interfaces has been the basis of several prebiotic models of molecular complexification and compartmentalization towards the appearance and evolution of different forms of life. Since mineral–aqueous media interfaces have been considered as initial stages of prebiotic models dealing with the formation of energy-transducing systems, the interface formed by pyrite in the presence of artificial primitive seawater was chosen to show the functional richness of this special niche. Interfaces − especially sulphide interfaces − were proposed as suitable niches for a two-carbon extant metabolism, synthesis and polymerization of nucleotides − to form ancient RNA strands − and assembly of amino acids synthesized in its vicinity. Accumulation of precursors at sulphide interfaces could have avoided their dilution into the Hadean seas and provided a suitable geochemical environment for a variety of molecular interactions. In this essay, we present a short review of the proposed roles of mineral interfaces in chemical evolution towards the appearance of primitive membranes, which might have been relevant for the advent of cellular life before its divergent evolution and differentiation. This survey covers several previous studies on the early cycles of energy conservation and of the formation of molecules carrying genetic information.