41-8 Quantum Tunneling in Late Heavy Bombardment Impact-Generated Nanofracture Networks as a Pathway to Abiogenesis

Session: Philosophy of Extreme Events and Landscape Evolution on Earth and Other Planets: Thinking Geologically in the Spirit of Victor Baker

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Why life appeared so early after planetary formation remains unresolved. Geological evidence places its emergence between ~4.3 and 3.8 Ga, overlapping the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB), when repeated asteroid and comet impacts reworked the crust to depths of kilometers. The role of impact-generated fractures in abiogenesis has often been considered in terms of the hydrothermal systems they create, but their effect on the planet-scale probability of life's origin remains uncertain. We propose that a key outcome of the LHB was the formation of fracture systems extending from meter-scale structures down to micrometer- and nanometer-scale apertures, where quantum tunneling effects can become significant. Based on observations of terrestrial impactites, these networks likely exhibit fractal patterns that multiply potential reactive interface area by orders of magnitude with decreasing scale, yielding billions of junction nodes per cubic meter. Within these fractal networks, intersections at micro- and nanoscales bring mineral surfaces, steep chemical gradients, and nanoconfined water into close association, positioning reactants within sub-nanometer proximity. At such distances, electron and proton quantum tunneling can become comparable in rate with classical thermal activation, enabling C–C and C–N bond formation and proton transfers at lower energies than in bulk aqueous environments, promoting complex molecular assembly. Unlike open water, where dilution and hydrolysis rapidly destroy complex molecules, these nanofractures may have promoted the frequency of these reactions by structurally stabilizing reactive configurations. Fractal replication of reactive geometries throughout the upper crust scales the number of independent quantum-active reaction sites to enormous values. Even with extremely small per-site probabilities for generating complex prebiotic chemistry, this scaling suggests that life's emergence may have approached statistical inevitability given the planet-scale abundance of sites where tunneling can overcome classical activation barriers, potentially resolving the paradox of life's rapid appearance on Earth and implying similar outcomes on planets with similar impact histories.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Program. Vol. 57, No. 6, 2025

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-11391

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