A team of Indian scientists from the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences (BSIP) has uncovered evidence that calcium carbonate deposits—travertine—at high-altitude hot springs in Ladakh’s Puga Valley could have served as natural “incubators” for the very molecules that sparked life on Earth. Their findings, published in ACS Earth and Space Chemistry, suggest a pivotal role for carbonate minerals in prebiotic chemistry—alongside the more commonly studied silica-based pathways.
Led by Dr. Amritpal Singh Chaddha and colleagues Dr. Sunil Kumar Shukla, Dr. Anupam Sharma, Prof. M.G. Thakkar, and Dr. Kamlesh Kumar, the interdisciplinary team employed microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, gas chromatography–mass spectrometry, X-ray diffraction, infrared spectroscopy, and stable-isotope geochemistry. They demonstrated that natural calcite crystals within the Puga travertine matrix trap and stabilize a suite of organic precursors—including amino acid derivatives, fatty acids, sulfur compounds, and formamide—even under the valley’s intense ultraviolet radiation.
“Our empirical data show that CaCO₃ in the Puga hot spring environment effectively preserves key prebiotic molecules,” explained Dr. Chaddha. “These travertine formations likely provided both protection and structural templates for complex organics to accumulate and persist in harsh, early-Earth or Mars-like conditions.”
This discovery challenges the dominant focus on silica-rich settings for origin-of-life research by highlighting carbonate minerals’ underappreciated potential. Beyond reshaping theories of how life’s building blocks may have assembled on primordial Earth, the work carries significant implications for astrobiology. Next-generation missions—like those planned by ISRO—may now look to carbonate deposits on Mars and other planetary bodies as promising targets in the search for preserved biosignatures.
Moreover, understanding natural biomolecule entrapment in travertine could inform advances in synthetic biology and materials science, where the stabilization and templating of organics remain central challenges.
