The world’s first environmental cleanup occurred 400 million years ago

One of the biggest environmental challenges today is dealing with land contaminated with toxic substances from industrial activities. arsenic, Antimony When tungsten.

However, these same elements can be brought to the surface by natural processes such as bubbling. hot springTherefore, it is important to understand how humans were treated by the environment before their emergence. A site in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, famous for early fossil life preserved by hot springs, shows how it happened.

some of the world best preserved fossilized plants can be found in linnyjust west of Aberdeen, is a sediment believed to have come from the oldest terrestrial ecosystem in the world.

Approximately 410 million years old, hot springs have preserved spiders, insects, fungi, and other life forms, as well as highly detailed flora. These are some of the earliest fossil plants known and are important in teaching us about plant evolution.

However, these hot springs also brought toxic elements to most living things.up to date research It shows that minerals deposited between plants extracted toxic metals from spring water, limiting their environmental impact.

minerals and toxic metals

Linye’s plants were encased in minerals silica, deposited around the hot springs.at tourist destinations such as Iceland, new zealand When yellowstone national park In the United States, waterborne bacteria are responsible for the formation of these silica deposits, and this was the same at Rhinney.

Fossils contain silica as well as certain minerals such as: pyrite (iron sulfide, so-called fool’s gold), manganese oxide When titanium oxideIt is these minerals produced by bacteria and other life forms that have absorbed toxic metals.

Pyrite, formed by bacteria, absorbed arsenic from spring water. manganese oxide, commonly deposited by fungi, also absorbs arsenic. Titanium oxide, which formed especially around decomposing plant debris, absorbed tungsten and antimony.

Thus, among them, minerals formed by biological activity accounted for the major sources of toxicity. shows how it helped cleanse the

mushroom magic

Our solutions to man-made environmental problems, such as industrial and mining pollution, typically include the following areas: chemical treatmentBut an exciting ‘natural’ approach is my core mediationfungi concentrate and store contaminant elements in that material.

Fungi are highly resilient and adapt rapidly to substances considered toxic. One strategy is to harvest the fungi that inhabit and tend to deal with mining or industrial waste, and use the fungi to clean up the waste at other problem sites. As such, fungi can be used to rehabilitate land contaminated with toxic metals.

biologist Merlin Sheldrakein the award-winning 2020 book tangled life“Fungi are some of the most adapted organisms for environmental remediation… fine-tuned over a billion years of evolution.”

Evolution is the key word here. Ecosystems (plants, animals, and their habitats, including minerals) are not “intended” to clean up toxic chemicals the way humans are. However, life is more likely to thrive and reproduce in ecosystems that have been stripped of toxic substances.as do certain fungi selected To help cope with polluted lands, evolution favored species that adapted to environmental changes in the geological past, as suggested by Riney.

remaining questions

The sediments of this special geological site were formed by hot springs, the water of which preserved plant cells. However, it is unclear to what extent these fossils represent early plant communities, as the hot springs that formed the Rhinie deposit were rich in arsenic, antimony, and other trace elements.

scientist might argue The plants found in Rhynie may be adaptations to a chemically unusual environment. There is no definitive answer as to whether this was the case, but our observations suggest that ecosystems were able to respond to water chemistry, so the presence of these plants was not necessarily anomalous. bottom.

Today, a visit to the hot springs of New Zealand and Yellowstone not only reveals an orange or yellow crust containing harmful arsenic, antimony, etc., but also precious metals such as gold and silver, the hot springs are of commercial interest. increase.

Hot springs around the world also contain elements that until recently were largely ignored. lithiumSpring water provides a renewable supply of this element, which is now the basis of rechargeable batteries. This is essential, especially in electric vehicles, which are critical to meeting carbon emission targets. As such, hot springs may play multiple roles in helping cleanse the environment.

Author: John Parnell – Professor of Geology and Petroleum Geology, University of Aberdeen