Jack Lucentini | Dec 1, 2003 | 7 min read
Courtesy of Preston Huey, © 2003 AAAS LIFE IN THE HOT SEAT: In one hypothetical model, an alkaline hydrothermal solution of constant temperature and pH may have convectively pumped through a confining porous mound of precipitated clays, hydroxides such as Mg(OH)2, and iron nickel sulfides into a cool and acidulous ocean. In 1953 a University of Chicago graduate student, Stanley Miller, shot electric sparks into an apparatus that circulated water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen in a