The rocks themselves

Rocks and life evolved in parallel. It's so obvious - you wonder why we geologists didn't think of it before.

says Robert Hazen to New Scientist. But the word "evolve" in this context should be treated with caution, as Hazen says here:

Mineral evolution is obviously different from Darwinian evolution—minerals don’t mutate, reproduce or compete like living organisms. But we found both the variety and relative abundances of minerals have changed dramatically over more than 4.5 billion years of Earth’s history.