Research of the origins of life in connection with a marine environment started at the end of the seventies, when the black smokers in the Pacific were discovered and the Red Sea deep hydrothermal brines were found to be a fruitful environment for abiotic synthesis of life precursors. For a while this research was categorized under the heading Chemistry, but in less than a decade the topic became fully integrated into the science of oceanography. The Scientific Committee on Oceanographic Research (SCOR) initiated working Group 91: Chemical Evolution and Origin of Life in Marine Hydrothermal...