Seeping Methane and Early Earth
Evolutionary scientists have been speculating about conditions on a primordial earth. The failed Miller-Urey experiment was based on the assumption that our planet had a "reducing" atmosphere with gasses that prevented or removed oxygen, but scientists later found that oxygen was present early on. Oxygen is a paradox, because most life forms need it to survive, but something trying to evolve would be killed by it. So those owlhoots cling to their faith and try to cognate when oxygen arrived or formed on Earth. Without actual evidence, of course. Methane bubbles rising from the sea bed / Image courtesy of the NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program. There are life forms that live in extreme oceanic environments, such as those in deep thermal vents . But there are things living in shallower, colder areas where methane seeps up from the ocean floor that are used, according to presumptions, to gauge changes early on our planet. Methane was one of the alleged primordial gasses in