In the previous post I discussed some of what is required to form a theory, and I proposed a theory at odds with everyone else as to how the Martian rivers flowed. One advantage of that theory is that provided the conditions hold, it at least explains what it set out to do. However, the real test of a theory is that it then either predicts something, or at least explains something else it was not designed to do.
Currently there is no real theory that explains Martian river flow if you accept the standard assumption that the initial atmosphere was full of carbon dioxide. To explore possible explanations, the obvious next step is to discard that assumption. The concept is that whenever forming theories, you should look at the premises and ask, if not, what?
The reason everyone thinks that the original gases were mainly carbon dioxide appears to be because volcanoes on Earth largely give off carbon dioxide. There can be two reasons for that. The first is that most volcanoes actually reprocess subducted material, which includes carbonates such as lime. The few that do not may be as they are because the crust has used up its ability to turn CO2 into hydrocarbons. That reaction depends on Fe (II) also converting to Fe (III), and it can only do that once. Further, there are many silicates with Fe (II) that cannot do it because the structure is too tightly bound, and the water and CO2 cannot get at the iron atoms. Then, if that did not happen, would methane be detected? Any methane present mixed with the red hot lava would burn on contact with air. Samples are never taken that close to the origin. (As an aside, hydrocarbon have been found, especially where the eruptions are under water.)
Also, on the early planet, iron dust will have accreted, as will other reducing agents, but the point of such agents is, they can also only be used once. What happens now will be very different from what happened then. Finally, according to my theory, the materials were already reduced. In this context we know that there are samples of meteorites that have serious reduced matter, such as phosphides, nitrides and carbides (both of which I argue should have been present), and even silicides.
There is also a practical point. We have one sample of Earth’s sea/ocean from over three billion years ago. There were quite high levels of ammonia in it. Interestingly, when that was found, the information ended up as an aside in a scientific paper. Because it was inexplicable to the authors, it appears they said the least they could.
Now if this seems too much, bear with me, because I am shortly going to get to the point of this. But first, a little chemistry, where I look at the mechanism of making these reduced gases. For simplicity, consider the single bond between a metal M and, say, a nitrogen atom N in a nitride. Call that M – N. Now, let it be attacked by water. (The diagram I tried to include refused to cooperate. Sorry) Anyway, the water attacks the metal and because the number of bonds around the metal stays the same, a hydrogen atom has to get attached to N, thus we get M-OH + NH. Do this three times and we have ammonia, and three hydroxide groups on a metal ion. Eventually, two hydroxides will convert to one oxide and one molecule of water will be regenerated. The hydroxides do not have to be on the same metal to form water.
Now, the important thing is, only one hydrogen gets transferred per water molecule attack. Now suppose we have one hydrogen atom and one deuterium atom. Now, the one that is preferentially transferred is the one that it is easier to transfer, in which case the deuterium will preferentially stay on the oxygen because the ease of transfer depends on the bond strength. While the strength of a chemical bond starts out depending only on the electromagnetic forces, which will be the same for hydrogen and deuterium, that strength is reduced by the zero point vibrational energy, which is required by quantum mechanics. There is something called the Uncertainty Principle that says that two objects at the quantum level cannot be an exact distance from each other, because then they would have exact position, and exact momentum (zero). Accordingly, the bonds have to vibrate, and the energy of the vibration happens to depend on the mass of the atoms. The bond to hydrogen vibrates the fastest, so less energy is subtracted for deuterium. That means that deuterium is more likely to remain on the regenerated water molecule. This is an example of the chemical isotope effect.
There are other ways of enriching deuterium from water. The one usually considered for planetary bodies is that as water vapour rises, solar winds will blow off some water or UV radiation will break a oxygen – hydrogen bond, and knock the hydroden atom to space. Since deuterium is heavier, it is slightly less likely to get to the top. The problem with this is that the evidence does not back up the solar wind concept (it does happen, but not enough) and if the UV splitting of water is the reason, then there should be an excess of oxygen on the planet. That could work for Earth, but Earth has the least deuterium enrichment of the rocky planets. If it were the way Venus got its huge deuterium enhancement, there had to be a huge ocean initially, and if that is used to explain why there is so much deuterium, then where is the oxygen?
Suppose the deuterium levels in a planet’s hydrogen supply is primarily due to the chemical isotope effect, what would you expect? If the model of atmospheric formation noted in the previous post is correct, the enrichment would depend on the gas to water ratio. The planet with the lowest ratio, i.e. minimal gas/water would have the least enrichment, and vice versa. Earth has the least enrichment. The planet with the highest ratio, i.e. the least water to make gas, would have the greatest enrichment, and here we see that Venus has a huge deuterium enrichment, and very little water (that little is bound up in sulphuric acid in the atmosphere). It is quite comforting when a theory predicts something that was not intended. If this is correct, Venus never had much water on the surface because what it accreted in this hotter zone was used to make the greater atmosphere.
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