At Goldschmidt 2025 in Prague, PROTOS researchers will showcase groundbreaking insights into the geochemical pathways and mineral catalysts that shaped Earth’s earliest environments, driving the emergence of life. Their presentations span experimental studies on Hadean ocean chemistry, prebiotic mineral surfaces, and protocell formation, offering new perspectives on how early Earth conditions and processes may have fostered biological innovation. Through this work, PROTOS advances our understanding of life’s origins and sets the stage for exploring similar phenomena on Earth-like worlds beyond our planet.
On Tuesday 8th July, several researchers from the PROTOS project will take the stage at the prestigious Goldschmidt Conference 2025 in Prague, one of the world’s leading forums for geochemistry and planetary science. This global gathering offers a vital platform for investigating the deep-time interplay between Earth’s evolving environment and the emergence of life.
PROTOS scientists will present their work under “Theme 07: Co-Evolution of Life and the Earth“, which explores how life, planetary environments, and geological processes have shaped one another over billions of years. The theme brings together interdisciplinary research on the emergence of metabolisms, biogeochemical cycles, surface oxidation, global glaciations, and other key evolutionary transitions that define Earth’s habitability. Contributions span approaches ranging from field studies and laboratory experiments to numerical simulations and planetary analogues.
Within this theme, PROTOS will contribute to “Session 07h: Global Geochemical Pathways to the Origin and Survival of Life on Earth-like Worlds“, which focuses on the large-scale geochemical processes that enabled life to arise and persist. This session highlights research into prebiotic chemistry, mineral-organic interactions, nutrient cycling, and the formation of microenvironments essential for early biochemistry. By combining experimental, modeling, and comparative planetary approaches, these studies deepen our understanding of how life emerged on Earth and how similar processes might unfold on other habitable worlds across the cosmos.
Featured Presentations – Tuesday, 8 July 2025
🔬 Interaction of calcite with iron-rich hydrothermal solution leads to anoxic oxidation of iron: implications for early earth atmosphere
At 09:30 GMT+2 (Club A – 1st Floor, Prague Congress Centre), Dr. Smruti Sourav Rout will present experimental evidence showing that the interaction between calcite and iron-rich hydrothermal fluids may have led to the formation of magnetite and hydrogen under anoxic conditions. These findings suggest that such reactions played a key role in shaping the redox balance of the Hadean ocean and contributed to prebiotic chemistry by maintaining a reducing environment.
🌍 The role of silica in the setting of Hadean protoworlds
At 14:30 GMT+2 (Club A – 1st Floor, Prague Congress Centre), PROTOS Principal Investigator Prof. Juan Manuel Garcia-Ruiz will deliver the keynote for Session 07h, proposing that mineral surfaces—especially silica—were critical catalysts in the prebiotic synthesis of organic molecules. His work reframes lightning-driven chemistry and serpentinization as universal processes potentially active on other rocky worlds, coining the term “protoworlds” to describe early-Earth-like systems across the cosmos.
🧑🏫 Concomitant formation of protocells and prebiotic compounds in the primordial soup
At 15:00 GMT+2 (Club A – 1st Floor, Prague Congress Centre), Dr. Christian Jenewein will discuss how the building blocks of life and primitive cell-like compartments might have formed simultaneously under prebiotic conditions. The results demonstrate that silica not only supports organic synthesis but also encourages the formation of vesicular, biomorphic protocells, suggesting a unified origin for molecular and structural complexity.
Poster Presentations – 17:30–19:30 (Poster Hall 3A – 3rd floor, Prague Congress Centre)
Poster Presentation 1
🧪 Real-time imaging of pH gradients and solution flows through silica garden membranes during tube growth
Prof. Juan Manuel Garcia-Ruiz presents real-time visualizations of silica garden formation, showing how pH gradients and solution flows create microenvironments capable of catalyzing prebiotic reactions.
Poster Presentation 2
🌍 Silicon stable isotope profiling of an extinct sinter mound from the El Tatio geothermal field, Chile; implications for the interpretation of early siliceous deposits
Dr. Mark van Zuilen analyzes silicon isotope profiles from an extinct sinter mound in Chile, offering insights into the thermal and depositional history of hydrothermal systems relevant to early life studies.
Poster Presentation 3
🔬 Stochastic Cellular Automata models simulating Early Earth prebiotic self-organization reactions
Dr. Inna Kurganskaya showcases how stochastic cellular automata can model the emergence of structure in prebiotic systems, bridging the gap between natural complexity and synthetic understanding.
Poster Presentation 4
🌍 Silicon stable isotope systematics of the >3.4 Ga Apex and Strelley Pool Cherts: new constraints on silica sources and the δ30Si composition of Paleoarchean seawater
PhD student Maxence H. Le Picard presents new isotope data from some of Earth’s oldest cherts, shedding light on early ocean chemistry and the environmental conditions that may have supported the first life.
These contributions from the PROTOS team exemplify our mission: to reconstruct the geochemical environments that enabled life to emerge on Earth and explore how similar processes might occur beyond our planet. As Earth’s deep past continues to inform the search for habitable worlds, PROTOS is proud to be part of this critical scientific dialogue.
