Experimental volcanic lightning under conditions relevant to the early Earth: Discharges as a possible prebiotic synthesis mechanism

Far from being a recent development of the Earth System, volcanism has accompanied the Earth, terrestrial planets and countless exoplanets since their origins. Volcanism is a material mechanism whereby planets evolve to their differentiated states that are potentially capable of hosting life. Explosive volcanic eruptions are commonly accompanied by volcanic lightning, modulated by charging and discharging mechanisms within the eruption column. As discharges have been proposed as a potential prebiotic synthesis mechanism for forming first organic molecules, the behaviour of volcanic lightning at early Earth conditions could yield further insights into likely environments for the origin of life.

Earth´s atmosphere has changed significantly in composition and pressure since its early beginnings. Here, we would like to investigate how volcanic lightning might have operated and was influenced by changes in those environmental conditions. For this purpose, we have developed an experimental device, which consists of a gas-tight modification of a shock-tube apparatus, to investigate experimental discharges in decompressed jets of gas and volcanic ash particles under varying atmospheric conditions. The setup acts as a Faraday cage, capable of measuring discharges close to the vent. The gas inside the particle collector tank is sampled by crimp cap bottles and analysed by gas chromatography. We modified the enveloping atmospheric composition and pressure (200 mbar – 4 bar) and the transporting gas phase (argon and nitrogen).

We have tested atmospheres containing carbon dioxide, nitrogen and carbon monoxide to mimic early Earth conditions and obtained discharges with similar magnitude to those achieved in an air atmosphere. We have also varied the atmospheric pressure and observed that decreasing the atmospheric pressure results in less discharges. The results of the experiments demonstrate that it is the coupling between gas and ash particles which largely governs the occurrence and magnitude of discharges close to the jet nozzle. Nitrogen as transporting gas results in fewer discharges compared to argon, emphasizing the importance of the composition of the transporting gas phase in the jet charging and discharging mechanisms. The preliminary results point to active volcanic settings under varying atmospheric conditions as multivariate environment for the emergence of life and thus our experiments continue.