Last Update: 2 November 2017 Part I

M 108
THE GAIA HYPOTHESIS

Presence of life in the earth is not for the presence of present life in physical environment. It is
worked out by James Love lock and Lyan Margulis (1973) and they introduced a new hypothesis called the
Gaia hypothesis. He wrote a book (1979) the name belongs to Gaia- A look at the life in Earth and
subsequently (1988) he wrote The Ages of Gaia and later (1996) James Love-lock and Lyan published
The Gaia Hypothesis.
The present physical environment is not the cause of the origin of life but it is consequence (result)
origin of life. Earth is vast living system some sort of super organism system which has go its own integrate
control system and the biological control of the geochemical environment.
Gaia is the term which means the Greek Gods of the Earth. In Greek civilization many Gods present.
Gaia is one of them. But there is no scientific idea but a philosophical idea behind of this hypothesis. It is
considered that life is originated about 4 million years ago. There is no amount of O2 in the environment so
that initial life is not dependent on O2. It was an aerobic. Prokaryotic organism only depends upon CO2. As
they evolved the amount of CO2 decreases and O2 increases. Gradually the love evolved by evolution and
photosynthetic bacteria which started to release extensive O2 our present day depend on O2. We derived our
energy from aerobic respiration. There was a prebiotic environment origin of life Evolution of life
changed the environment still today.
Present environment is the result of initial environment. They believe the atmosphere of mars is chemically
the dead state of Equilibrium State.

According to Lovelock (1979) the following table was found-

Atmosphere Mars Earth Venus Earth without life
CO2 95% 0.03% 98%` 98%
N2 2.7% 79% 1.9% 1.9%
O2 1.3% 21% Trace Trace
0 0 0
Surface Temp -50 c 13 c 477 c 2900c
Prebiotic environment is quite different from the present environment and dominated by CO2. Earth has its
control mechanism, which contort all types of process.
This distinct of environment is not the reason of presence of life but the result of life.

Summary:-
1. Geo chemical environment permit origin of life.
2. As a result of origin of life, changes of geochemical environment takes place.
3. Organism and geo chemical environment are interlinked and each is able to change to other.

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