Life may have originated on Earth 4 billion years ago....

in #life7 years ago

In 1992, researchers discovered evidence of what was then potentially the earliest life on Earth: 3.5-billion-year-old microscopic squiggles encased in Australian rocks. Since then, however, scientists have debated whether these imprints truly represent ancient microorganisms, and even if they do, whether they’re really that old. Now, a comprehensive analysis of these microfossils suggests that these formations do indeed represent ancient microbes, ones potentially so complex that life on our planet must have originated some 500 million years earlier.

The new work indicates these early microorganisms were surprisingly sophisticated, capable of photosynthesis and of using other chemical processes to get energy, says Birger Rasmussen, a geobiologist at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, who was not involved with the work. The study “will probably touch off a flurry of new research into these rocks as other researchers look for data that either support or disprove this new assertion,” adds Alison Olcott Marshall, a geobiologist at the University of Kansas in Lawrence who was not involved in the effort.

Banded_Chert_near_Marble_Bar_in_Western_Australia.jpg

In the new study, William Schopf, a paleobiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles—and the discoverer of the Australian microfossils—teamed up with John Valley, a geoscientist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Valley is an expert in an analytical technique called secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), which can determine the ratio of different forms of carbon in a sample—key to gauging whether it’s organic.

Sort:  

Source- http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/life-may-have-originated-earth-4-billion-years-ago-study-controversial-fossils-suggests

Not indicating that the content you copy/paste is not your original work could be seen as plagiarism.

Some tips to share content and add value:

  • Use a few sentences from your source in “quotes.” Use HTML tags or Markdown.
  • Linking to your source
  • Include your own original thoughts and ideas on what you have shared.

Repeated plagiarized posts are considered spam. Spam is discouraged by the community, and may result in action from the cheetah bot.

Creative Commons: If you are posting content under a Creative Commons license, please attribute and link according to the specific license. If you are posting content under CC0 or Public Domain please consider noting that at the end of your post.

If you are actually the original author, please do reply to let us know!

Thank You!

Hi! I am a robot. I just upvoted you! I found similar content that readers might be interested in:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/life-may-have-originated-earth-4-billion-years-ago-study-controversial-fossils-suggests