Earth's Early Atmosphere and Oceans, and The Origin of Life

• Main Author: Shaw, George H. (Author)
• Corporate Author: SpringerLink (Online service)
• Format: Electronic eBook
• Language: English
• Published: Cham : Springer International Publishing : Imprint: Springer, 2016.
• Edition: 1st ed. 2016.
• Series: SpringerBriefs in Earth Sciences,
• Subjects: Earth sciences.; Planetology.; Geobiology.; Earth.; Geology.; Geoecology.; Environmental geology.; Earth Sciences.; Biogeosciences.; Popular Earth Science.; Geoecology/Natural Processes.

This book provides a comprehensive treatment of the chemical nature of the Earth’s early surface environment and how that led to the origin of life,including a detailed discussion of the likely process by which life emerged using as much quantitative information as possible. The emergence of life an...

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Accretional history of Earth
• Processes of degassing
• Atmospheric processing of degassed volatiles
• Early Archean “geography”
• Degassing processes
• Prebiotic chemistry – why we should pay attention to this
• Eigen’s hypercycle and the emergence of life
• How the carbon-rich surface is key to emergence of life
• Evolution of Earth starting with a carbon-rich surface
• Implications of this model
• Conclusions.