[Whit]

      Here ya go Wolf. From this site: http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaver...955/origin.htm

Oparin considered that the origin of life was a natural step in the constant transformations of matter.

The base of Oparin's theory is that the conditions in the primitive Earth were different from the ones we know now.

The atmosphere on primitive Earth would be rich in Hydrogen and very poor in Oxygen, that's another way to say there wasn't an ozone layer. Because of that, there would have been an intense bombardment of U.V. radiation on the surface.

Most of that primitive atmosphere would be gases from volcanos, like water, methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide, etc.

The water originated the oceans we have now, "washing" the atmosphere of the dangerous excess of carbon dioxide that would have caused a heatting effect simmilar to the one we see now on Venus.

These molecules, all together in a "primitive soup" on the ocean, and by the action of the U.V. radiation and radioactivity of the cooling Earth, would have formed the first organic molecules, the basis of life.

Those would form a kind of primitive cell, named by Oparin a "coacervate", that can "grow" and "divide" in a water solution.