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The Rise of Life on Earth: Cavitation in Nature
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Abstract
The phenomenon of cavitation has been known in science and technology for more than a hundred years. It was first recognized as an important hydrodynamic phenomenon in connection with high speed marine propulsion, including early observations associated with British destroyers in the late nineteenth century. Osborne Reynolds and later researchers helped establish cavitation as a serious problem in ship propellers, pumps, and turbines [1,2].
Beyond Amino Acids
Amino acids are important, but amino acids alone are not life. Life also requires organization, compartmentalization, molecular information, energy flow, and eventually self-replication.
Therefore, if cavitation played a role in the origin of life, it was probably not as a single isolated cause. More likely, cavitation helped produce or transform certain organic molecules, which were then concentrated, stabilized, or further processed by other natural systems.
For example, mineral surfaces could have adsorbed organic molecules. Wet–dry cycles could have concentrated them. Hydrothermal vents could have supplied chemical gradients. Volcanic environments could have supplied gases and metals. Meteorites could have delivered additional organic compounds. Cavitation may have operated alongside all of these processes.
Recent work has also suggested that cavitation may help form nucleoside related compounds, which are relevant to RNA world chemistry. A 2021 study reported that cavitation could plausibly contribute to the prebiotic formation of N9 purine nucleosides [9].
This is significant because the origin of life likely required not only amino acids, but also molecules related to genetic information and molecular replication.