AN EFFICIENT LIGHTNING ENERGY-SOURCE ON THE EARLY EARTH

Miller and Urey suggested in 1959 that lightning and corona on the early Earth could have been the most favorable sources of prebiotic synthesis. In 1991 Chyba and Sagan reviewed the presently prevailing data on electrical discharges on Earth and they raised questions as to whether the electrical sources of prebiotic synthesis were as favorable as was claimed. The proposal of the present paper is that localized lightning sources associated with Archaean volcanoes could have possessed considerable advantages for prebiotic synthesis over the previously suggested global sources.