Researchers from Yale University suggest that lightning strikes during the first billion years, after the formation of the planet Earth, may have released the phosphorus needed to create biomolecules necessary for life.

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“Most phosphorus on Earth is trapped in minerals that are basically insoluble and non-reactive, meaning they can’t make the biomolecules needed for life. Lightning strikes provide new mechanisms for creating phosphorus in a form that can create important phenomena for life,” said Hess.

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Significance of the mineral fulgurite

Researchers examined an unusually large, intact sample of fulgurite formed when lightning struck the yard of a house in Glen Elin, Illinois, USA. This sample proved that fulgurites contain significant amounts of schreibersite.

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“Our research shows that the production of bioavailable phosphorus by lightning may have been underestimated and that this mechanism provides a continuous supply of phosphorus-capable material in a life-sustaining form,” said study co-author Jason Harvey, an associate professor of geochemistry at the University of Leeds.

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Scientists believe that the earliest organisms are similar to bacteria, formed in the primordial waters of the Earth, but there is a debate about when this happened and whether it took place in warm and shallow waters or in deeper waters in hydrothermal vents.

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