What are all of the Vitamins and Minerals?

role of minerals

Rocks and minerals would have been present on Earth when life originated. Were they simply part of the environment in which life developed, or did they play a more active role?

A range of roles have been proposed for minerals in the Origin of Life, including the provision of one or more of the following:-

• A surface onto which organic molecules could be adsorbed, thereby increasing their concentration
• Early membranes
• Calalysts for the reactions of early life
• A mechanism for the origin of homochirality in the molecules of life
• Transfer of hereditary information
• Mechanisms that were the precursors of photosynthesis
• Energetic reactions capable of driving the first metabolic cysles.