Life

Life pioneers

Palaeontology is the science that studies the ancient living beings, their origin and evolution. This study requires the examination of the animal and vegetal remains that lived in the past and that we find today as fossils inside sedimentary rocks. Primordial organisms had very simple and small shapes, so they could not turn into fossil remains. The most ancient fossils to have been found so far date back to approximately 3 billion years ago. How have the first living organisms originated? Before the appearance of life, the Earth’s landscape was dominated by active volcanoes, a grey, lifeless ocean and a very turbulent atmosphere. The ocean received organic substances from the mainland, the atmosphere and the fall of meteorites and comets. And the ocean is the place in which such substances as water, carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia chemically reacted, producing sugars, amino-acids and fats. These molecules are the raw material required for the formation of proteins and nucleic acids that are the basic compounds of any living organism.