How are scientists using knowledge of life on Earth to develop a theory for the origin of life in general?
Recent evidence indicates that life began at least 3.85 billion years ago, soon after the violent period of planetary accretion. What were the first microorganisms and their habitat like, and how did they arise from inanimate matter? Insight into the answers to these questions will come from a reconstruction of the first billion years of Earth history. Progress toward that objective has already been made during the past 30 years, and new knowledge can be gained on several fronts. Contributions will come from advances in theoretical modeling of how Earth’s surface environment changed over time. These advances, coupled with an environmental history derived from investigations of the earliest geological record, will provide a self-consistent model of the planet during this seminal epoch in its history. It is within this environmental context that pathways for the prebiotic synthesis of biomolecules and the origin of living systems can be formulated and assessed most fruitfully. Together,
