Re: Silicon-based life

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At 07:14 AM 20/8/96 PDT, Dinogeorge@aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 96-08-20 09:32:26 EDT, kaesler@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Roger
>L. Kaesler) writes:
>
><< The science fiction about silicon-based life is fascinating.  The best
> thing about it in my opinion is not that it tells us anything about life
> but that it is a great way to introduce beginning geology students to the
> mineralogy of silicate rocks.  The silicon-oxygen bond is very strong, much
> stronger than the carbon-hydrogen bond.  It takes far too much energy to
> rearrange the atoms in a silicate mineral for it to form the basis of a
> life form.  That is why the components of silicon-based life as we know it,
> that is, the suite of silicate minerals, are igneous in origin.  But it is
> a great teaching tool, and I strongly recommend it. >>
>
>This makes me wonder whether silicon-based lifeforms might evolve in a
>temperature regime of a few thousand degrees C and at high ambient pressure,
>as in magma somewhere deep in the earth's center. Probably not, but I daresay
>the chemistry of silicon compounds in such regimes is not terribly well
>known.
>
I remember, many years ago, reading a short Science Fiction story, in which 
a strange creature was discovered in a furnace (it may have been a blast 
furnace).  It was rather pathetic, and it died when the furnace temperature 
dropped.  The explanation in the story, of course, was that it have evolved 
in a high temperature regime.
___________________________________________________________________
Denis Bates
Institute of Earth Studies
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
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UK
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