Astrobiology Workshop, Macquarie University July 12-13 2001

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Nanostructure of Inorganic Biomorphs

A. G Christy, S. T. Hyde (Australian National University), J. M. Garcia-Ruiz (Granada)

Barium carbonate precipitates grown in inorganic silicate media show a variety of startlingly "biological" morphologies. Detailed examination of these structures shows: (i) that they are composite materials shaped in part by interaction between two or more different inorganic phases, and (ii) the overall form is also related to correlated orientations of constituent crystallites, which show a larger-scale analogue of liquid-crystal type order.