Just add baking soda – A recipe for life?

North of Kamloops in British Columbia are twin salty lakes. But instead of regular kitchen salt, these natural lakes are filled with a solution of baking soda. These lakes are called alkaline soda lakes. One of the lakes, Lake Goodenough, is brimming with life, covered in thick layers of cyanobacteria in summer. The other, Last Chance Lake, is barren. Four billion years ago, life on planet Earth may have started in an alkaline soda lake just like these, because these are the only natural environments with the dissolved phosphate needed to kickstart life’s chemistry. Today, phosphate is still high in Last Chance Lake. Now, Market Lab Researchers have looked at sediments below the two lakes and concluded that even though Last Chance has most of the phosphate today, Lake Goodenough might actually best resemble an primordial cradle for life.

Paquette AJ, Bhatnagar S, Vadlamani A, Gillis T, Khot V, Novotnik B, De la Hoz Siegler H, Strous M, Rattray JE (2024) Ecology and biogeochemistry of the microbial underworld in two sister soda lakes. Environmental Microbiome 19.