AsianScientist (Sep. 6, 2016) – Researchers in Australia have found the world’s oldest fossils, revealing that diverse life forms thrived on Earth 3.7 billion years ago. The research was published in Nature.
Professor Allen Nutman, who is based at the University of Wollongong and the co-lead investigator on the study, said that the stromatolite fossils the researchers found in Greenland predated the world’s previous oldest stromatolite fossils from Western Australia by 220 million years.
The fossils in the study, which were discovered in the Isua Greenstone Belt along the edge of Greenland’s icecap, push back the fossil record to near the start of the Earth’s geological record and point to evidence of life on Earth very early in its history.
Stromatolite fossils are mounds of carbonate constructed by communities of microbes. The Isua stromatolites were exposed by the recent melting of a perennial snow patch and were shown to have grown in a shallow marine setting, providing the first evidence of an environment in which early life thrived.
“The structures and geochemistry from newly exposed outcrops in Greenland display all of the features used in younger rocks to argue for a biological origin,” University of New South Wales Professor Van Kranendonk, who was part of the research team, said. “This discovery represents a new benchmark for the oldest preserved evidence of life on Earth.”
These findings could also have implications for searching for life on Mars, according to the researchers.
The article can be found at: Nutman et al. (2016) Rapid Emergence of Life Shown by Discovery of 3,700-million-year-old Microbial Structures.
———
Source: Australia National University.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.
