Primeval data soup
This concept reflects ideas about the possible origins of life in replicative mineral structures. The model is a cast of a packing defect in otherwise close packed spheres. An exploration of fault replication in close packing systems led to the use of faults, or discontinuities in otherwise homogeneous structures, as a means of conveying, storing and replicating information. In this sense, information is understood as a difference in an otherwise homogeneous (and thus meaningless) system.

Fault replication in three-dimensional close packing structures
Nicola Lefever, 1992.

A fault in one layer of the close packing of spheres is automatically repaired in the following layer, but the fault reappears in the next layer if the rules of close packing are continued. The fault therefore self-replicates in alternate layers. This discovery was used extensively in the later data structures.

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