By: Jerry Zhang

On Thursday, August 8, 2024, a report was published in the journal Science detailing how a 30-person team drilled into the Mid-Atlantic seabed and pulled up nearly a mile of extremely rare rocky material. A sample of this magnitude has never before been pulled up to the surface and serves as a cornerstone to a major theory on the origin of life.

Researchers have long theorized that deep within Earth’s oceans lie regions that could be the origin of all life. In the Atlantic, they named one such landscape of jagged spires the “Lost City,” proposing it as a site where life-preceding chemistry might have taken place. Now, for the first time, scientists have successfully obtained a glimpse of this potential birthplace of life.

For many years, scientists have theorized that the hot springs or their underlying rocks in the deep ocean helped nurture the geochemical reactions that billions of years ago led to the emergence of life. Recently, they have intensified their search for evidence to support this theory. “A lot of people did lab work and paper studies and modeling on the origin of life,” said Deborah Kelley, an oceanographer at the University of Washington, according to The New York Times. “It lays a foundation for new understanding.”

So, early last year, the expedition, Building Blocks of Life, drilled deep into the rocky seabed adjacent to one of the volcanic rifts crisscrossing the global seabed. Known as midocean ridges, the sites feature hot springs whose waters shed minerals into the icy seawater, slowly building up strange mounds and spires that sometimes host riots of bizarre creatures. The “Lost City” site sits 1,400 miles east of Bermuda, with terrain filled with spires, some rivaling a 20-story building.

Early last year, the “Building Blocks of Life” expedition drilled deep into the rocky seabed adjacent to one of the volcanic rifts crisscrossing the global seabed. These sites, known as midocean ridges, feature hot springs that release minerals into the frigid seawater, gradually forming unusual mounds and towering spires that often teem with bizarre life forms. The “Lost City” site, located 1,400 miles east of Bermuda, is home to many of these spires, some as tall as 20-story buildings.

The retrieved core sample measures a staggering 1,268 meters in length, making it the deepest and most substantial sample ever obtained from beneath the undersea springs. According to The New York Times, Frieder Klein, an expedition team member from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, commented, “We did it. We now have a treasure trove of rocks that will let us systematically study the processes that people believe are relevant to the emergence of life on the planet.”

With these new samples, scientists anticipate years of groundbreaking discoveries through detailed analysis of the rocks. Hopefully, these findings will shed light on one of humanity’s oldest questions: How did life emerge?