The "Last Universal Common Ancestor" was a volcanic microbe

*I'm thinking this may be evidence for a panspermia scenario. If the origin of Earth surface life was a creature living in subterranean water-vents, then life may have originated in the dark interior oceans of the likes of Europa or Pluto, and then been carried to Earth. A few ice crystals with a biological payload, out of the geysers of Enceladus or Europa, that oughta do the trick.

Deep Sea Vents

Genes are adapted to an organism’s environment. So Dr. Martin hoped that by pinpointing the genes likely to have been present in Luca, he would also get a glimpse of where and how Luca lived. “I was flabbergasted at the result, I couldn’t believe it,” he said.

The 355 genes pointed quite precisely to an organism that lived in the conditions found in deep sea vents, the gassy, metal-laden, intensely hot plumes caused by seawater interacting with magma erupting through the ocean floor.

Deep sea vents are surrounded by exotic life-forms and, with their extreme chemistry, have long seemed places where life might have originated. The 355 genes ascribable to Luca include some that metabolize hydrogen as a source of energy as well as a gene for an enzyme called reverse gyrase, found only in microbes that live at extremely high temperatures, Dr. Martin and colleagues reported Monday in Nature Microbiology….