Michael Russell is a British
geologist who works on the
origin of life.
Russell is the originator of the theory that life emerged at alkaline submarine
hydrothermal vents
A hydrothermal vent is a fissure on the seabed from which geothermally heated water discharges. They are commonly found near volcanically active places, areas where tectonic plates are moving apart at mid-ocean ridges, ocean basins, and hotspot ...
. Russell's theory is that
hydrogen,
hydrogen sulfide
Hydrogen sulfide is a chemical compound with the formula . It is a colorless chalcogen-hydride gas, and is poisonous, corrosive, and flammable, with trace amounts in ambient atmosphere having a characteristic foul odor of rotten eggs. The unde ...
, and
methane, released from submarine alkaline hydrothermal vents, acted upon
nitrate
Nitrate is a polyatomic ion
A polyatomic ion, also known as a molecular ion, is a covalent bonded set of two or more atoms, or of a metal complex, that can be considered to behave as a single unit and that has a net charge that is not zer ...
,
ferrous and
ferric iron
In chemistry, iron(III) refers to the element iron in its +3 oxidation state. In ionic compounds (salts), such an atom may occur as a separate cation (positive ion) denoted by Fe3+.
The adjective ferric or the prefix ferri- is often used to s ...
,
carbon dioxide, and
protons in ambient ocean waters to form simple
organic molecules
In chemistry, organic compounds are generally any chemical compounds that contain carbon-hydrogen or carbon-carbon bonds. Due to carbon's ability to catenate (form chains with other carbon atoms), millions of organic compounds are known. The s ...
Russell studied 360-million-year-old mineral deposits in
Ireland, which led to his insight that
iron sulfide
Iron sulfide or Iron sulphide can refer to range of chemical compounds composed of iron and sulfur.
Minerals
By increasing order of stability:
* Iron(II) sulfide, FeS
* Greigite, Fe3S4 (cubic)
* Pyrrhotite, Fe1−xS (where x = 0 to 0.2) (monoclin ...
and hydroxide cells may have provided three-dimensional molds for the first cell walls.
Career
Russell was an undergraduate in
geology at
Queen Mary College of the
University of London.
He worked as a mineral exploration geologist in the
Solomon Islands and
Canada prior to taking his PhD in
geochemistry at the
University of Durham.
He taught at the Applied Geology Department of the
University of Strathclyde before joining the
University of Glasgow as the Dixon Professor of Applied Geology. He was a visiting professor at the
University of Grenoble
The Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA, French: meaning "''Grenoble Alps University''") is a public research university in Grenoble, France. Founded in 1339, it is the third largest university in France with about 60,000 students and over 3,000 resea ...
. He was
NASA Senior Research Fellow and then a Principal Scientist at the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
California Institute of Technology from 2006 until 2019 and a member of the
NASA Astrobiology Institute until 2021.
Russell has appeared on
BBC programmes
including
Horizon's Life on Mars and Origin of Life
Awards and honours
In June 2009, Russell was awarded the
William Smith Medal from the
Geological Society of London for his lifetime contributions to applied geology.
In 2018, he was awarded
NASA's Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal
The NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (abbreviated ESAM) was established by NASA on September 15, 1961, when the original ESM was divided into three separate awards. Under the current guidelines, the ESAM is awarded for unusually sign ...
for his research into the emergence of life.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Russell, Michael
Living people
Academics of the University of Glasgow
British geologists
Alumni of Durham University Graduate Society
1939 births