"In 1961, Drake pondered the plausibility of intelligent life elsewhere and created a mathematical formula to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations. The Drake Equation indicates, among other things, there are at least 4,000 planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone that are potential home bases for intelligent life. The recent discoveries of 80 additional solar planets seem to only strengthen the equation."
...
"Bacteria are immigrants," asserts engineer Robert Zubrin, author of The Case for Mars, and founder of Pioneer Astronautics, a space exploration firm. "While bacteria could not have been the first life, both fossil records and current biological surveys support the conclusion that bacteria was the first life on Earth," he says. This, of course, poses the conundrum well worn in the pages of science fiction: that life arose on Mars then somehow came to Earth, or that Earth and Mars were seeded simultaneously. "Most stellar systems are probably seeded at birth," Zubrin opined. But the search for life on Mars could hold the answer. "If we find pre-bacteria, it would show life originated there and moved to Earth, and if we found the same elements as we have found on Earth, that is strong evidence for panspermia."
http://www.the-scientist.com/yr2002/apr/rayl_p24_020415.html

This reminds me about the possiblity of finding "pre-bacteria" elements on the lunar polar region.
Now, I've explained why NASA should explore the lunar pole for possible minable deposits of water- commerical reasons. But as far as finding evidence concern the formation of life, the Moon might offer a quick & easy route of doing this. It's similar to idea of "following the water to find life". We are fairly clueless of what we could find in the dark craters on the Moon. But one advantage is it's a fairly limited area- in comparison to an entire planet. Obviously there won't be anything living on the Moon, but it could give a possible look at conditions before life started- similar to if you could get a piece of the Earth before life started. So Moon could offer a way of looking back in time- and not just a picture of past, but a movie of the past which leads up to the present.
And there should a certain amount of uniformity amongst all the craters and within each crater. This means you only need to go to one crater, and deepest you would need to drill for any sample is far less than 100 meters- 5 meters might/could be a good target- simply an impact probe going a few feet.
Also any mining wouldn't interefere with this science work [mining could even provide samples for study]. Even if crew were dynamiting, you could get pristine samples a few hundred yards away- not even mentioning next crater over.