The evolution of life and the nature of the oldest organisms depend on the atmospheric, hydropheric and lithospheric conditions during very early terrestrial history. Specialists, working in different fields of scientific endeavour, assume that the various proposed early atmospheric, hydrospheric and lithospheric models are established; this is not the case as some of the proposed models are contradictory. The results of prebiological chemical evolution simulation experiments, actual chemical analyse of very ancient rocks and ancillary micropaleontological studies also lack agreement.
This article represents the first time a critical interdisciplinary inquiry has been attempted, based on astronomy geophysics, geochemistry, geology, atmospheric physics, oceanography, hydrology, chemistry and biology. Prebiological organic compounds have yet to be found in rocks. The oldest known rock (∼3800 million years) of sedimentary origin, found in S.W. Greenland has not yet revealed microfossils and carbon compound other than methane. The (∼3400 m years) Onverwacht sedimentary rocks in South Africa may or may not contain biological substances. A Transvaal stromatolite (∼2300 m years) contains blue-green algal microfossils having physiologically diversified cells: these fossile algae may have modern living analogs. Artificial compounds in this small rock may well attest complex biochemistry ∼2300 m years ago.
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