On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 10:36:28 -0400 (EDT), (G=EMC^2
Glazier) wrote:

Benoit The theory that life on earth began on the floor of the ocean
is making more,and more sense to me. The reason is even when the surface
became a crust it was more hostile to life than the ocean floor. Moby
told me that. He should Know Bert

Surface more hostile to life than ocean? You have a gift for understatements my
friend!

4 billions years ago, the chemical composition of Earth's surface (crust and
ocean) was very different than it is today. Most of the rocks and stones we see
today did not exist at that time because they were not formed yet! Grassland
and almost all land around us comes from millions of years of sedimentation on
the floor of the oceans. Volcanic activity help a lot to mix these new rocks
with old ones to make new types of chemical mixtures.

Limestone, for example, is formed by tiny shells from microscopic animals. Sand
is formed by eroded silicates and you need oxygen to make silicates and other
quartz... Oxygen comes from life only so the first lifeforms on Earth did not
need oxygen to live!

All of this to say that Earth's primitive crust wat TOO chemicaly simple to
allow development of life. If you want to make life you need:

- A solvent: a lot easier for chemicals to mix together. The best solvent
depend of the distance between planet and sun. At Jupiter-like distance,
ammonia is liquid so you can dissolve silicon based molecules easily. At Earth
distance, it is water and carbon that get the big role.

- Chemicals: Of course, life is a complex thing: you need almost all the
periodic table of the elements to make some... And the elements are not enough:
you need to mix them in the right proportions to build molecules, a lot of
them...

- Energy: Some elements just don't like each others and they need a little "kick
in the a.." to bind together. That can be done with energy, any kind of energy.
On Earth, it is heat, light and gravity who get the task done. Heat from the
Sun and volcanic activity, UV light from the Sun ( remember that Earth has no
oxygen so it has no ozone layer to protect the surface from UV light ) binds
together the molecules that are gathered on the high-bottoms of the oceans by
gravity.

- Time: I have an empty aquarium but i am too cheap to buy fishes so here is my
recipe to get some: take an aquarium, fill it with water and pour in everything
you can find at your local drugstore. Wait till Friday night and take it to
your local Disco ( not Rave, they have not enough blacklight! ) party to add
some UV light and some sound waves to mix the chemical together. Wait. Wait...
Wait... approximately 100 000 000 years or more and Bingo! Instant Life! I i
wait a billion years more, i will get my fishes!

Conclusion: While life could have appeared on Earth's crust, it is a lot MORE
likely that it appeared on... the beach! (where we all should be right now...)

I would like to add 4 notes to this small essay:

First, there are other places in the universe where the conditions are correct
for life to evolve from inert material: comet surfaces and great nebulaes. It
is more and more accepted in the scientific community that life on Earth could
have come from a comet or an asteroid from elsewhere in the Galaxy. Carl Sagan
said that we are made of starstuff, remember?

Second, while writing the "Disco" part of this text, it occured to me that sound
waves could very well replace UV light for the mixing energy in the formation of
life. To the best of my knowledge, i am the first one to have though about
this. If that becomes inportant in future theories of life formation, i would
like to be credited the idea that sound waves played a role in this.

Third: I live just about 30 kM south of a rocky formation called "The Canadian
Shield" ( Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada ). It is huge, about a third of Canada
and it is OLD, about 3.5 billions years old, amongst the oldest rocks on Earth.
Some times, i go there and i touch the rocks and i stand in respect for the
communion of two chemical receptacles separated by eons of times... I do not
know the english words here to express what i feel in that moment but i wish
everyone could have that almost mystic experience by themself.

Fourth: You may have noticed a few mistakes and a few bizarre sentences in the
text above, please forgive me: english is not my native language. I nam working
hard to get better and your help will be greatly appreciated!

BenoÎt Morrissette,
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp...49&submit.y=12