"Pre-biology..."

What if we're dealing with a situation in which biology as such never quite got going, but the precursors (whatever they may be) are still in a state of quasi-suspended animation?

But then, we have no precursors on Earth with which to compare. There is no such thing as "pre-biology" on Earth; only life or not-life. And since life appears on Earth about as early as conditions allowed (bombardment slowed, surface temps cooled) there may never have been time for precursors to sort out the ways to organize into active biology.

Rather than spontaneously arising, in other words, biology on Earth (and by extension Mars) may have been seeded, fully formed, from elsewhere. Ah, panspermia! Of course that just puts the question of origin farther back and farther out.

But if biology is not spontaneously generated on planetary bodies at all, "pre-biology" would never be found, would it?

If biology is spontaneously generated on planetary bodies, the absence of "pre-biology" on Earth is interesting...

Cheers, BRFelix