Marine Hydrothermal Systems and the Origin of Life: Report of SCOR Working Group 91

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 Oceanograp...