I think the beginning of life started with "sparks". They were multitude in number and infinitesimal in size and lifespan. These sparks grew in size and lifespan over long periods of time eventually leading to life as we know it. It's actually quite simple when you think about it. As for what these "sparks" were made up of I don't know, as I'm no scientist.
Personally, I don't believe abiogenesis ever took place; but it is fun to think about, if that time had even been allowed to exist.
Studies from the 1950's about the origins of Life; Miller Experiments, used electric sparks; arcs, to simulate lightning. Lightning is caused by the movement of water vapor upward in thunder clouds. The Thunderclouds become positive due to all the broken hydrogen bonds.
Water was there at the beginning setting the stage, with one of its many tricks. The water and various gases in the atmosphere, plus the lightning, formed amino acids. If you have hydrogen cyanide gas present; HCN, one can also make nucleic acids. These precursors of life, were then scrubbed out of the atmosphere, with the torrential rain, collecting in the liquid water below. Since the early earth did not have an oxygen atmosphere, these building blocks were less vulnerable to oxidation and would linger and accumulate below.
One of the bottlenecks in Abiogenesis is connected to a bias of a tradition; fossil fuels. Parallel experiments, at the time of Miller, used similar experimental conditions. This team were able to generate complex tars, too complex to analyze. It is very likely the term fossil fuel is a misnomer, since complex hydrocarbons may have been here, way before life, also stemming from lightning and gases, at the same time as the amino acids.
Life would eventually infiltrate these deposits and leave fossils. The bias of the fossil fuel tradition creates a bottleneck to research since is does not allow scientists to polymerize amino acids in oil to form protein. Instead it has to work under the assumption oils came later, instead of at the beginning. The challenge has been to find alternate pathways, that are more round about, instead of direct using early oils; hydrocarbons.
When you polymerize amino acids the products are protein and water. This reaction is inhibited when done in water, since the bulk water will reverse the reaction; stalls. But if we do this in oil, the released water will want to leave the oil due to surface tension, allowing the reaction to go forward.
