Lower surface pressures would greatly reduce the boiling points of fumarolic fluids and produce larger bubbles extending the vapor phase range of lunar protolife compounds enhancing reactivity. Reactivity would also be increased by convection, reflux and fluidization in fumarolic

vents. One of the more interesting stimuli for Precambrian lunar protolife is fumarolic spatter and wet/dry cycles, combined with lower lunar gravity and surface pressure (Green, 1965). Spatter of particles 0.1 m or less from fumaroles on earth at Kuirau Park in Rotorua in New Zealand on January 26, 2001 were thrown 100 m. On the moon, this would produce a spatter blanket of some one million square meters. Spatter would have relatively high concentrations of nucleotides, catalysts, enzymes and divalent cations By flash evaporation hot lunar spatter landing on montmorillonite could possibly produce pyrimidines

including FK228 mw cytosine on dryout (Nelson, et al. 2001) as well as ammonium cyanide. Drying and heating in fumaroles could possibly promote polymerization reactions of oligonucleotides and peptides. Wet/dry cycles of clay-rich vents have been shown to produce peptides of 12 to 20 amino acids chains (Penny, Cell Cycle inhibitor 2003). Also modifying the arguments of Lathe (2004) for the origin of life in rapid terrestrial ocean tidal cycles, a version of a polymerase chain reaction favoring double strand RNA or DNA replication and amplification might relate to lunar fumaroles during wet and dry cycles. During the drying phase of fumarolic spatter cycles, characterized by high soluble cation concentrations, the opposing PO4 groups that separate each sugar nucleotide monomer in double stranded RNA or DNA would be more effectively neutralized by divalent fumarolic

ions (Mg+2, Ca+2, Ba+2) (versus Lathe’s monovalent ion terrestrial model); interstrand hydrogen bonding would promote association of the two polymer strands favoring RNA/DNA replication. Copying by the RNA/DNA polynucleotide can only take place during the drying phase along with non-enzymatic polymerization through dehydration condensation. Finally, potential fumarolic sites on the moon (Green, 2007) would be covered by unknown thicknesses of impact and volcanic ejecta. Fumarolic protolife, if present, would else probably occur in disseminated ices, in ice lenses or in clathrates. Blank, J. (2005). Earth’s primitive environment and exogenous sources of ingredients for prebiotic chemical evolution. (Abstract), Orig. Life Evol. Biosphere, 36: 204 Fishkit, M. (2007). Steps toward the formation of a protocell; the possible role of short peptides. Orig. Life Evol. Biosphere, 37: 537–553 Green, J. (1965). Tidal and gravity effects intensifying lunar defluidization and volcanism. Annals N.Y. Acad. Scis., 123: 403–469 Green, J. (2007). Implications of a caldera origin of the lunar crater, Copernicus. EOS Trans. AGU, 88, Fall Meeting Supplement, Abstract P41A-0227 and poster. Lathe, R. (2004).