Dear Authors,

The three referees made a number of comments that challenges the relevance of your theory of primary metabolisms. They were not always convinced by the proposed reactions because they were not sufficiently detailed or you might have under-estimated the oxidative status of the atmosphere during this period.

However, they also pointed to the originality of your work contributing to our understanding of life emergence. They also made a number of suggestions that could make your work more convincing. I therefore encourage you to prepare a new version of your manuscript that take into account as much as possible the comments made by the referees.

When describing how first metabolisms might occur in absence of cellular organisation it is often difficult to explain how opposed redox conditions/reactions might co-occur in the same place. This difficulty might be levered by considering how spatially these processes can be separated and organised. For example, in soil matrix, redox conditions can change at nanoscale creating many different redox conditions allowing cascade of biochemical reactions (e.g. Kéraval et al 2016 in Biogeosciences).

Your new version will be re-submitted to the original referees who wanted to review your manuscript once more.

Regards,

Sébastien

Dear authors,

The two former referees reviewed your new version of manuscript. Although one is globally satisfied by your modification the other is more negative stressing on the need to cite more past studies on the subject. I also agree with the referee when he says that your writring must be improved to make more understandable your ideas. Do you have english editing services in your Institute that could help ?

I wait that you take into account the last comments made by the referee before I can take my decision.

Regards,

Sébastien

Dear Authors,

Please carefully incorporate all the comments made by the referees in order to clarify and make more convincing your theoretical papers. Moreover, I ask you to have a more objective use of the literature by including studies that do not necessary support your theory as suggested by the referee. Finally, as already requested, have your manuscript reviewed by a native English speaker or a dedicated company in order to fix the main language mistakes and facilitate its readability.

Best regards

Sébastien

Dear Authors,

I went through your new version of manuscript and found it greatly improved with your last inputs. However, I still have some reserves:
- There are still some minor issues with the text. I commented your text and made you some suggestions in the attached file. Please consider these suggestions carefully.
-You did not consider all the referee's comments. For example, there are some references (eg McGleen, Etiopes etc) you did not include without any justifications. This is not acceptable. More generally, you have not explained how and where (in the manuscript) you corrected your text. For the next round, I ask you to work in correction mode or to specify precisely the lines where you included the references and corrections.

Regards,

Sébastien

Dear Authors,

I am pleased to inform you that your article is now ready to be published. I am satisfied by the collective work involving you, the referees and me, which greatly improves the initial version.

Best regards,

Sébastien