The World’s Oldest known Fossils have been Discover- and they’re 3.7 Billion Years Old
The oldest fossils ever discovered have been found in Greenland, and they show to have preserved the earliest signs of life of Earth.
Dated to around 3.7 billion years ago, the fossils hold evidence of stromatolites - layers of residue packed together by ancient, water-based bacterial colonies - and could push back the origins of life in the fossil proof by 220 million years.
Before this fossil was founded, the oldest known evidence for life were 3.48 billion-year-old fossil stromatolites discover in the Pilbara region in Western Australia.
"The significance of stromatolites is that not only do they supply obvious evidence of ancient life that is visible with the naked eye, but that they are complex ecosystems," said lead canvasser Allen Nutman from the University of Wollongong in Australia. Dated to around 3.7 billion years ago, the fossils hold evidence of stromatolites - layers of residue packed together by ancient, water-based bacterial colonies - and could push back the origins of life in the fossil proof by 220 million years.
Before this fossil was founded, the oldest known evidence for life were 3.48 billion-year-old fossil stromatolites discover in the Pilbara region in Western Australia.
"This indicates that as long as 3.7 billion years ago, microbial life was by now diverse. This diversity shows that life emerged within the 1st few hundred millions years of Earth's survival, which is in keeping with biologists' calculations showing the huge antiquity of life's genetic code."
The fossils were exposed in the oldest known sedimentary rocks in the world, locked in the Isua Greenstone Belt, which runs down the edge of Greenland's icecap.
While these rocks have been studied for decades, the fossils were obscured from outlook by constant snow fall, but Nutman and his team got there at now the right time to see the snow and ice begin to melt away.
The fossils, which have been cut left from the rocky outcrop and are now under analysis in Australia, contain tiny cones, presently 1 to 4 centimetres tall, and the researchers say their structure and internal layering look exactly like other ancient and current stromatolites."The texture of the nearby rocks suggests that they were laid down at the bottom of a shallow sea, a great deal as stromatolites are today in places such as the Bahamas and Western Australia," Alexandra Witze explain for Nature.
"And the rocks contain carbonate minerals such as dolomite, which are also common in younger stromatolites."
If the team can confirm that these actually are the ancient marks of 3.7-billion-year-organisms, it’s going to create life difficult for those tasked with explanation how evolution could have shaped such relatively complex organisms so early on in Earth’s lifespan.
To have had time to develop into organisms associated with stromatolites formations, Nutman and his team propose that life on Earth would have likely originated throughout the Hadean stage of our planet’s the past, which runs from Earth’s formation about 4.65 billion years ago - when debris in orbit about the Sun accumulated into our planet - to around 4 billion years ago.
But there was nothing pleasant about Earth during that point in time. As Nicholas Wade reports for The New York Times, proof suggests that it was being constantly bombarded with asteroids so unhelpful that one even cracked a chunk off Earth to form our Moon. "Having said that, it’s incredible that anything can be discover in these rocks that are barely a ghost of what they were previous to. That’s why it’s worthy of attention.
The fossils were exposed in the oldest known sedimentary rocks in the world, locked in the Isua Greenstone Belt, which runs down the edge of Greenland's icecap.
While these rocks have been studied for decades, the fossils were obscured from outlook by constant snow fall, but Nutman and his team got there at now the right time to see the snow and ice begin to melt away.
The fossils, which have been cut left from the rocky outcrop and are now under analysis in Australia, contain tiny cones, presently 1 to 4 centimetres tall, and the researchers say their structure and internal layering look exactly like other ancient and current stromatolites."The texture of the nearby rocks suggests that they were laid down at the bottom of a shallow sea, a great deal as stromatolites are today in places such as the Bahamas and Western Australia," Alexandra Witze explain for Nature.
"And the rocks contain carbonate minerals such as dolomite, which are also common in younger stromatolites."
If the team can confirm that these actually are the ancient marks of 3.7-billion-year-organisms, it’s going to create life difficult for those tasked with explanation how evolution could have shaped such relatively complex organisms so early on in Earth’s lifespan.
To have had time to develop into organisms associated with stromatolites formations, Nutman and his team propose that life on Earth would have likely originated throughout the Hadean stage of our planet’s the past, which runs from Earth’s formation about 4.65 billion years ago - when debris in orbit about the Sun accumulated into our planet - to around 4 billion years ago.
But there was nothing pleasant about Earth during that point in time. As Nicholas Wade reports for The New York Times, proof suggests that it was being constantly bombarded with asteroids so unhelpful that one even cracked a chunk off Earth to form our Moon. "Having said that, it’s incredible that anything can be discover in these rocks that are barely a ghost of what they were previous to. That’s why it’s worthy of attention.
The team plans on recurring to the site to see if there are more signs of life in the area nearby the fossils. Allwood says their case would be made a whole lot stronger if they can find deposits of organic stuff that would have accompany the bacteria along with their stromatolite formation.
We'll presently have to wait and see what they find.
We'll presently have to wait and see what they find.
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