Marine Hydrothermal Systems and the Origin of Life

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 t...