Marine Hydrothermal Systems and the Origin of Life

Download or read book Marine Hydrothermal Systems and the Origin of Life written by SCOR Working Group 91 and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 1992-11-30 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research of the origins of life in connection with a marine environment started at the end of the seventies, when the `black smokers' in the Pacific were discovered and the Red Sea deep hydrothermal brines were found to be a fruitful environment for abiotic synthesis of life precursors. For a while this research was categorised under the heading `chemistry', but in less than a decade the topic became fully integrated into the science of 'oceanography'. The Scientific Committee on Oceanographic Research (SCOR) initiated Working Group 91: Chemical Evolution and Origin of Life in Marine Hydrothermal Systems'. This volume contains the final report of this working group.