Barbara Cavalazzi

Inorganic Nanoparticles in Archaean Carbonaceous Matter - a key to early life and palaeoenvironmental reconstructions

Inorganic Nanoparticles in Archaean Carbonaceous Matter | INACMa

Project FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG-618657

PI: Barbara CAVALAZZI

Under Marie-Curie Action: Career Integration Grants

From 2014-01-01 to 2017-12-31, ongoing project

Earth is a dynamic system influenced by the interactions between life and physical environments at all scales of space and time. Though our planet is ~4.6 Gyr old, we don’t know yet when and in which environmental conditions it first became home to life. The early rocks hold the answers to these questions, but in a scattered and fragmentary manner with traces of life often being highly altered.

This project could provide a substantial contribution to the understanding of early life on Earth: Inorganic Nanoparticles in Archaean Carbonaceous Matter will be investigated to decipher crucial aspects of early life framed in its environmental context.

Inorganic nanoparticles are naturally formed and removed from the environment by various chemical and biological processes. Relationships between microorganisms and adsorption of specific inorganic nanoparticles, and physico-chemical parameters have been observed in natural environments. Therefore, inorganic nanoparticles have a great potential as a biosignature and paleoenvironmental proxy when associated to fossil objects. Archaean cherts of Barberton greenstone belt (South Africa) contain the oldest known traces of fossil life in a well-preserved geological context. Micro-/nano-scale investigations of the nature and distribution of carbonaceous material and related inorganic nanoparticles in these primitive cherts by using a combination of high resolution microscopy techniques, will allow to:

• evaluate the composition and texture of carbonaceous chert, and identify the nature of the carbonaceous material and its inorganic nanoparticles;
• establish a relationship between inorganic nanoparticles content and specific types of carbonaceous material;
• explore their roles in the Archaean bio-geochemical processes, and their potential as biosignatures.

Read more about the current research project