Theoretical origin of life; aged subterranean extremophiles (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, January 26, 2019, 14:40 (1916 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Wow!! What this means is that the process of life is exceedingly tough and can last though any type of trial. If they date back to before dinosaurs (250 myo) they were alive deep in the Earth at 300 myo!

dhw:Thank you for this. I can only echo your “wow!” But I thought bacteria dated back approx. 3.5 billion years, which is an even bigger wow!

DAVID: You are comparing origin of life to a survival issue under very extreme conditions.

dhw: Sorry, I didn’t mean to start a discussion! But I would have thought our friends the bacteria would have survived very extreme conditions long before 300 million years ago!

Of course bacteria survived extremes long before that. This is just the latest example that has been found. Origin of life most likely started in extreme condition on early Earth.