ArticleFrontiers in astronomy and space sciences2023
Setting the geological scene for the origin of life and continuing open questions about its emergence.
Article in Frontiers in astronomy and space sciences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed.
- The role of minerals in prebiotic evolution: Implications for identifying worlds with the potential for life's origin.Fundamental research · 2026Review
- Low-Molecular-Weight Polyols as Key Factors in Sulfur- and Borate-Mediated Protomembrane Formation Before the RNA World.Membranes · 2026Review
- The Emergence of Life in the Light of Evolution.ArXiv · 2026Article
- Abiotic sources of fixed nitrogen sustained early ecosystems for several hundred million years after the origin of life.Science advances · 2026Article
- Redox chemistry of early Earth and the origin of life.Communications chemistry · 2026Review
- Antagonistic effects of amino acids support abiotic nano-environments in clay.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Life as a Categorical Information-Handling System: An Evolutionary Information-Theoretic Model of the Holobiont.Biology · 2026Review
- Water Versus Land on Temperate Rocky Planets.Space science reviews · 2026Review
- What the Solar System Can Teach Us About Rocky Exoplanets.Space science reviews · 2026Review
- What the earliest evidence for life tells us about the early evolution of the biosphere.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Origin of the RNA World in Cold Hadean Geothermal Fields Enriched in Zinc and Potassium: Abiogenesis as a Positive Fallout from the Moon-Forming Impact?Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Prebiotic formation of thioesters via cyclic anhydrides as a key step in the emergence of metabolism.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Reciprocating thermochemical mediator of pre-biotic polymer decomposition on mineral surfaces.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
- Selective Adsorption of Thiol-Containing Molecules on Copper Sulfide Surfaces via Molecule-Surface Disulfide Bridges.The journal of physical chemistry. C, Nanomaterials and interfaces · 2025Article
- Meteorite-common amino acid induces clay exfoliation and abiotic compartment formation.Communications earth & environment · 2025Article
- Perspective: Protocells and the Path to Minimal Life.Journal of molecular evolution · 2024Review
- Timing the evolution of phosphorus-cycling enzymes through geological time using phylogenomics.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Opinion: The Key Steps in the Origin of Life to the Formation of the Eukaryotic Cell.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Optimization and Enhancement of the Peroxidase-like Activity of Hemin in Aqueous Solutions of Sodium Dodecylsulfate.ACS omega · 2023Article
- Formation of Amino Acids and Carboxylic Acids in Weakly Reducing Planetary Atmospheres by Solar Energetic Particles from the Young Sun.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
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4 authors.
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Abstract
The origin of life is one of the most fundamental questions of humanity. It has been and is still being addressed by a wide range of researchers from different fields, with different approaches and ideas as to how it came about. What is still incomplete is constrained information about the environment and the conditions reigning on the Hadean Earth, particularly on the inorganic ingredients available, and the stability and longevity of the various environments suggested as locations for the emergence of life, as well as on the kinetics and rates of the prebiotic steps leading to life. This contribution reviews our current understanding of the geological scene in which life originated on Earth, zooming in specifically on details regarding the environments and timescales available for prebiotic reactions, with the aim of providing experimenters with more specific constraints. Having set the scene, we evoke the still open questions about the origin of life: did life start organically or in mineralogical form? If organically, what was the origin of the organic constituents of life? What came first, metabolism or replication? What was the time-scale for the emergence of life? We conclude that the way forward for prebiotic chemistry is an approach merging geology and chemistry, i.e., far-from-equilibrium, wet-dry cycling (either subaerial exposure or dehydration through chelation to mineral surfaces) of organic reactions occurring repeatedly and iteratively at mineral surfaces under hydrothermal-like conditions.
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