Comments on: Waterworlds…Of Life?

By: pythor

pythor — Mon, 16 Feb 2004 13:52:42 +0000

If the surface water receives a reasonable ammount of light, then the biome should be able to evolve/acquire chlorophyll. As I understand it, it’s a fairly simple molecule. Then you have “plants”, starting with single cells, possibly evolving into lily-pad type multi-celled structures. It’s not land, but it could provide enough surface to develop some small “land” critters.

Or I could be dreaming again…

By: J n

J n — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 11:55:06 +0000

well, i thought about what you had to say for awhile. at first i was disheartened (i really like the idea of a life filled waterworld) but then i thought of it more… if you have a layer of ice on the top and thermal vents on the bottom wouldn’t the warm water rise and the cold water drop creating a system much like ours, even if the temperture diffrence is small there should be movement (right?). That action should create motion in the water and any motion should be enough to move at least SOME nutrients up to the upper levels.
Just a thought
J-n

By: rickyjames

rickyjames — Thu, 12 Feb 2004 15:52:40 +0000

...has been featured a few times here at SciScoop before. They are certainly on the edge without being out and out quacks. I like that.

By: apsmith

apsmith — Thu, 12 Feb 2004 13:29:02 +0000

Interesting that you bring up Wickramasinghe – I was just looking at another article on how Earth life may have spread through the galaxy – at least 30 light years by now, according to these estimates.

By: Omnicrola

Omnicrola — Thu, 12 Feb 2004 11:27:54 +0000

An interesting tangent here. Assume that life is abundant everywhere on this water world. Now from what’s said above, there would be nothing to stop storms from going on and a on. So eventually you would just get a planet full of raging storms, or maybe even one big one.
So now think of the way life would evolve to suit such conditions. Interesting, no? A life form evolved specificly to live in a hurricane.
I wonder what such a think would look like?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Feb 2004 07:57:37 +0000

Except that air breathing sea animals only exist because of ocean->land->ocean evolution.

The article has some interesting physics, but I think its biology is off the wall. _DEEP_ sea life is very limited by its dependance on geothermal energy and nutrient sources. _SHALLOW_ sea life is dependant on nutrients flowing from land masses and the bottom and by solar energy.

With 70-100 Km between the two zones, I doubt there would be much ‘interchange’. Dead microscopic life would ’sink’ surface nutrients to the bottom fairly efficiently – but there isn’t an obvious mechanism to ‘close the loop’ and send nutrient rich sea bottom water back to the top.

I suspect you would end up with ’sea worm’ style communities at the bottom of the ocean, and a nearly sterile surface.

But I could be wrong. :)