Abdu, Suzan B
Description
Degree Type: thesisDegree Name: Master of Science (MS)Date of Degree: 1996Granting Institution: Clark Atlanta UniversityDepartment/ School: Department of Biological SciencesAccording to geological evidence, life arose in the sea approximately one billion years following earth formation. A new sea spray model for the origin of life is developed here to calculate the time of appearance of the first living cell, termed a protocell. The model proposes that life arose from sea spray that concentrated organic materials from a dilute primordial sea, and this spray became suspended in the atmosphere for several days and dehydrated to the extent of forming polymers which returned to the primordial sea. Each dehydrated sea spray droplet then became an experiment or trial of the mixture of biochemical activities (e.g., enzymatic activities) contained in each droplet. If the dehydrated spray contains a certain minimal set of essential biochemical activities, and returns to the ocean intact, it is considered a successful cell in this model termed the sea spray hypothesis. This work comprises theoretical model building and estimation of model parameters. The elaboration of this sea spray hypothesis has been done in probabilistic model terms. A range of values is assigned to all model parameters and median values are used to calculate the time of appearance of the first cell. A critical model parameter is an estimate of the number of biochemical activities possible with the organic material captured within a spray droplet. Parameter studies help to delimit the necessary conditions that may have generated life on earth...
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Seffens, William
