At 04:06 PM 1/21/2010, Jones Beene wrote:
The natural abundance of D in the oceans of
Earth of approximately one atom in 6,500 of
hydrogen (~154 ppm) or four times lower than
Jupiter. What happened to the rest of it, if it
was initially the same as Jupiter?
Fascinating question based on an interesting
discovery. I have a hypothesis to propose:
biological transformation. Vyosotskii has
published striking evidence that it happens,
specifically with deuterium. As to how, proteins
can manage some pretty sophisticated confinement
tricks, putting stuff together and holding it
together in amazing ways. If low energy nuclear
reactions are possible, maybe those bacteria are
smarter than we think. They had a lot of time to
work it out, and a lot of experiments that they
would run until something happened that was
useful. It appears that the bacteria studied use
the reaction to generate iron that they need for
other reasons. The reaction would generate
disruptive energy, but one of the bacteria
studied was deinococcus radiodurans. The name
says it. "Radiation resistant." Amazingly
radiation resistant. Why? What value would that
confer large enough to make the trait dominate in
a population? I can think of several answers. An
ability to handle low energy fusion or transmutation would be one of them.
What we have that is basically different from
Jupiter is a 20% surface zone that is largely
rock and biomass, bathed in solar radiation
plus much lower gravity. If deuterium where to
form into dense accumulations preferentially
over hydrogen, such that some of it fuses into
helium by QM probability, which is enhanced in
confined containment (and thus deuterium is
removed from water on average) then this dynamic
would alter the ratio lower over eons. Given
that our atmosphere is not held by gravity as
tightly as Jupiter, that should mean that more H
than D escapes, so that is a counter mechanism
that indicates the fusion rate is even higher.
All in all, this could indicate that quantum
fusion of deuterium happens on a slow but
massive planetary scale on Earth and at a rate
which is actually predictable, based on the
comparative abundance here and on Jupiter,
divided by the time lapse and other variables
which will probably enter into the picture.
I find it a stretch, compared to the biological
hypothesis. But maybe it would work. One would
attempt to simulate conditions that might form to
do this. Given how persnickety the reaction seems
to be, that could be difficult. But remember, it
only takes two deuterons at a time, or some
transmutation reaction involving a deuteron and
another nucleus, so that's all a bacterium has to
line up and confine or channel.
There is also another possibility which is the
ultra-dense deuterium of Holmlid which
presumably would form in the mantle from
sedimentary matter and eventually migrate to the
earths core- and probably fuse along the way
into helium
thus to provide some of the
internal heat seen, which is often attributed to
uranium. This also explains why some wells
drilled for natural gas turn out to be high in
helium content. Concentrations of helium in
natural gas in New Mexico and Texas are as high
as 7%. It is very doubtful that this could be
primordial helium. Some could come from
radioactive decay, but given the huge
quantities, some could be from pycno-fusion.
Jones
Wasn't this more or less Steven Jones' idea (or
an idea he picked up)? But source could just as
well be biological; natural gas forming from
decay of material that may have included
fusion-enabled bacteria or other biological
structures that could pull off the trick. That
would also explain the coincidence of natural gas
(or oil, if that's the case) and helium.
