38:I[185,["/_next/static/chunks/2ys9ev5m3_24i.js","/_next/static/chunks/3pomb8r7ja54n.js","/_next/static/chunks/42spz6paskvb6.js","/_next/static/chunks/178kgr5-cejk9.js","/_next/static/chunks/1v5ewlr55okcj.js","/_next/static/chunks/3jnlvw-emqotx.js"],"SendEmailButton"] 40:I[27201,["/_next/static/chunks/05-c3ty_6dwfk.js","/_next/static/chunks/14mrh2-p_w84d.js"],"IconMark"] :HL["https://assets.blubrry.com/coverart/1400/3957418-201603.jpg","image"] 39:T50b,

Charles Darwin proposed that life on Earth may have started in bodies of highly alkaline water called soda lakes. New research suggests he may have been right.

You might remember from a prior EarthDate that phosphorus is an essential building block for DNA, RNA, and the energy carrier for cells, ATP. Without phosphorus, there is no life.

Soda lakes are some of the few places on Earth where phosphorus is readily available, rather than bound up in rocks.

Nearly all these lakes around the world are closed basins. Water enters, but there is no outlet.

As rivers flow toward a soda lake, running water leaches minerals out of the rocks it passes over, notably calcium and phosphorus. These then concentrate in the lake.

Normally, phosphorus would bond with dissolved carbonate compounds in the lake water and sink out. But calcium bonds more readily with carbonate than phosphorus, leaving the phosphorus in a pure form. Evaporation further concentrates it.

In small soda lakes, the level of phosphorus rises and falls with the rains, and the amount of river inflow. But new studies on larger closed basins show that phosphorous concentrations can remain high year-round, indefinitely…