Hypothetical question. Imagine the Earth where life did not start. How would it be different?

Best of all, there would be no Yahoo Answers with idiots asking stupid hypothetical questions.

The earth's temperature is maintained by the living organisms here on earth. Without them, the earth's temperature can fluctuate a lot more. Oxygen is pumped into the atmosphere by photosynthetic organisms. Without them, the earth's atmosphere would not have as much oxygen.

There are different possibilities. Look at the other planets and moons in our sun system.

Virtually no oxygen in the atmosphere.

Assuming that everything else is the same only absolutely no life, the surface of the earth would be land and water and maybe ice at the poles. Life is a major player in the condition of earth

It would be SAND minerals, Volcanic  and magma based metamorphic rock.  The oceans would be clear salt water, more or less, reflecting blue sky, but looking BLACK from directly above deep areas.  We would still have weather.

If life didn't start, there wouldn't be any people, no plants or insects or fish.  The only processes on the surface would be weather.

Basically there would be no free oxygen in the air and all the land surface would be rock or  crumbled rock (gravel, sand etc) - there would be no soil.

The early atmosphere was mainly carbon dioxide and water vapour. Water vapour condensed to form the oceans. Photosynthesis caused the amount of carbon dioxide to decrease and oxygen to increase.

So, no oxygen in a lifeless Earth's atmosphere.

I like how the second thing your mind goes to is chalk. The first life forms appeared at the beginning of the Archean eon 4 billion years ago. Before that was the Hadean eon, where Earth was basically a big burning rock. If no life started we would probably still be in the Hadean eon. Earth would look like Hell.