Life on Earth started on land in "warm Volcanic hydrothermic ponds, not at hydrothermal vents"?
         warm little ponds Volcanism vented Earth's interior onto land -
     making hot spring pools akin to Kilauea volcano on
      Hawaii's big island ( <--  pic spring 2018)                                                                                  
   While some data suggests LUCA may have may have been a hyper-thermophilic organism living near hydrothermal vents,  the first primitive cells may have germinated in pools of condensed vapor caused by underground hot water or steam bubbling near the surface of the planet, as those at Yellowstone National Park and other geologic hot spots .

   Geochemists comparing ancient land and marine environments suggest that the oceans did not contain the best balance of chemical ingredients to foster life. The chemical composition of land volcanic emissions more closely matches the inorganic chemistry of today's known cells.
These land pools are conducive to condensation reactions and may have used heat as an energy source, thus they may have been surface-like hydrothermal vents.

This hypothesis rests on the observation that enzymes common to all archaea and bacteria are built from potassium, phosphorous or zinc, not sodium, as would be prevalent in a salty sea. Condensed geothermal steam in these pools can have ratios of potassium to sodium ions as high as 75 to 1, and are rich in the other elements of life that have been leached from rock by the hot water.
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VOLCANIC LANDSCAPE HYPOTHESIS -
        5 suggested steps for a metabolism first origin of Cellularization.   
   
   1st step - synthesis of biomolecules (amino acids & nucleotides) via a Miller-Urey
                       mechanism and/or hydrothermal vent chemistry or intercellular space?        
   2nd step - organic compounds in volcanic hot springs accumulate in hydrothermal pools
  3rd step - concentrating of compounds within lipid vesicles favors formation of
                       complex molecular chains (polymers) 
  4th step - in massive combinatorial chemistry experiment repeated cycles of
                       wet/dry/moist phases forms complex protocells...
         wet - organics form - then protocells (encapsulated random vesicles of polymers)
         dry - membranes films favors polymer formations (chains of RNA like molecules?)
         gel - protocells pack together & exchange polymer sets with molecular...
                      selection favors survival of more thermodynamically stable polymers 
                      in a massive combinatorial chemistry selection process (fig*) 
  5th step ??? - surviving protocells spread to other pools/streams and
                       "develop photosynthesis and possibly replicative ability"
                        and form microbial communities" ??? 

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 Science fiction version...

   In the final episode of Star Trek: The next Generation the omnipotent being
   known as  Q  drags Captain Picard to Earth some 3.5 billion years ago and
   points to some bubbling slime and says...

           "This is you. Right here, Life is about to form on this planet for the very first
             time. A group of amino acids are about to combine to form the first protein,
             the building blocks of what you call Life... everything you know, your entire
             civilization - it all begins right here in this little pond of goo." 
 
      BACK        Star Trek LogoDid Star Trek predict modern medicine?