Our work began with an eye toward understanding the hydrocarbons found in Martian meteorites, but we soon realized that there are plenty of gas compositions from Earth's volcanoes, and we thought we should study the full range of possibilities. Zolotov gathered data from volcanoes ranging from Mt. St. Helen's and Iceland's Surtsey to Sicily's Mount Aetna and Hawaii's Kilauea. All of the volcanoes arose from different geological settings and produced initial gas temperatures of varying ranges. One suggests that life was brought here by comet or meteorite impacts or interplanetary dust. The other theory holds that life was generated here, either at the ocean floor, through a lightning spark that touched off an atmosphere that produced organic compounds in watery environments, or in volcanic gases.
All scenarios involve organic compounds.
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