Cosmic volcano

Trull, T. (1994) Influx and age constraints on the recycled cosmic dust explanation for high 3He/4He ratios at hot spot volcanoes. In Noble Gas Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry, J. Matsuda, Ed., pp. 77-88. Tokyo Terra Publication. 

I (and most scientists) would answer, By accident. But what an absolutely unlikely accident it must have been The earth on which life first appeared - prebiotic earth - was most inhospitable a violent place, wracked by storms and volcanoes, wrenched by the pull of a moon that was much closer than the one we know now, still battered by cosmic impacts. On its surface and in its oceans were myriads of organic compounds, some formed in processes occurring on earth, some imported by infalls from space. Out of this universe of tumult and molecules, somehow a small subset of chemical processes emerged and accidentally replicated, thus stumbling toward what became the first cells. How could such a chaotic mixture of molecules have generated cells Order usually decays toward disorder Why do the tracks that led to life point in the opposite direction ... 

The post-Cold War comic book treatment of atomic issues represents a distanced, almost abstract approach to facing the dilemmas of the fissioned atom. Although contemporary comics occasionally draw on tales of potential apocalypse, with some exceptions the inevitable cosmic disasters flow as much from earthquakes, meteors, volcanoes, or social breakdown as from nuclear conflagration. The majority of the vast array of modern "atomic" comic book heroes share one thing in common they have virtually nothing to do with nuclear energy, in any form. 

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