Abstract
A constraint on research into the evolution of the Earth's atmosphere may have been resolved by recent work on the photochemical reduction of atmospheric nitrogen by a naturally occurring form of TiO2 (ref. 1). We show here that this source could have provided a small but vital abiological supply of ammonia in the early atmosphere of the Earth. Locally the levels of NH3 produced by this mechanism satisfy the requirements of origin-of-life biologists whilst global levels do not conflict with chemical and physical constraints on the surface/atmosphere system nor with geological evidence for early Precambrian conditions.
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Henderson-Sellers, A., Schwartz, A. Chemical evolution and ammonia in the early Earth's atmosphere. Nature 287, 526–528 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1038/287526a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/287526a0
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