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Now, scientists have found geological evidence that the lightning discharges associated with volcanic events may have also played a role in nitrogen fixation, making it available for biological processes too.
Now that life exists, biological processes such as those in microbes living in the roots of plants can speed up the process. Human industrial techniques can also pump in nitrogen and pump out compounds like ammonia by the tank load. Aroskay and her team have found that evidence, in the form of nitrates embedded in ancient volcanic deposits. They collected samples from a number of volcanic deposits from explosive eruptions in Turkey and Peru, which took place between 1.6 and 20 million years ago, and looked specifically for nitrates, which are the end product of the oxidation of nitrogen.
The concentrations of sulfur and chlorine in the deposits were also consistent with a volcanic origin. Taken together, this suggests that volcanic lightning can fix nitrogen in amounts significant enough to play a role in life's emergence.
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