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posted by martyb on Thursday September 01 2016, @02:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the can-you-dig-it? dept.

Scientists have found evidence of microbial life in a fossil dated to 3.7 billion years ago:

Rapid emergence of life shown by discovery of 3,700-million-year-old microbial structures (DOI: 10.1038/nature19355) (DX)

Biological activity is a major factor in Earth's chemical cycles, including facilitating CO2 sequestration and providing climate feedbacks. Thus a key question in Earth's evolution is when did life arise and impact hydrosphere–atmosphere–lithosphere chemical cycles? Until now, evidence for the oldest life on Earth focused on debated stable isotopic signatures of 3,800–3,700 million year (Myr)-old metamorphosed sedimentary rocks and minerals from the Isua supracrustal belt (ISB), southwest Greenland. Here we report evidence for ancient life from a newly exposed outcrop of 3,700-Myr-old metacarbonate rocks in the ISB that contain 1–4-cm-high stromatolites—macroscopically layered structures produced by microbial communities. [...] The ISB stromatolites predate by 220 Myr the previous most convincing and generally accepted multidisciplinary evidence for oldest life remains in the 3,480-Myr-old Dresser Formation of the Pilbara Craton, Australia.

Reported at BBC, Ars Technica, and Reuters.


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:05PM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:05PM (#396230) Journal

    I thought it would be cool to have the History of the Earth placed on a sidewalk that school kids use. I worked out a list of events to put down. The most recent 500 million years were of course the best known, with the most information, and that's the section I thought best to put closest to the school. Going for a scale of roughly 3 million years per meter (about the length of a slab of sidewalk), needed about 1.5 km of sidewalk. World History fit entirely in a sliver less than 1cm long on the first slab. Seemed a fun way to get people to better appreciate just how very old the Earth really is, and how new and young we are.

    This is the relevant section of that list. The units are "millions of years ago" (mya).

    3460 Oldest certain fossils, of bacteria.
    3500 Earliest probable fossils, of cyanobacteria like organisms
    3700 Earliest known banded iron formations. O2 waste of anaerobic life rusts the iron
    3800 ^ ARCHEAN EON Earliest known biomarkers for life, lipids.
              v HADEAN EON v Late Heavy Bombardment
    3850 1st indirect evidence of life: Greenland apatite enriched in 12C. Kerogen

    So now I have new information for 3700.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Interesting=2, Underrated=1, Total=3
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday September 01 2016, @05:08PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Thursday September 01 2016, @05:08PM (#396262)

    You're using metric, so you must not be thinking about so many US kids having to use microscopes to study a 2mm sliver of concrete to figure out how many dinosaurs can dance on the head of a pin to win being ridden by Jesus today.

    • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday September 01 2016, @06:38PM

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Thursday September 01 2016, @06:38PM (#396309) Journal

      Indeed. It's long past time for the US to finish switching to metric. It's messed up to have food ingredients in grams and mg, while serving sizes are in English units. 44g of sugar per 16 fluid ounces, yeah!

      Yes, I was also thinking that putting science on sidewalks would bother the Creationists. Wonder how long it'd be before they defaced it, or rolled out their own rival timeline.

      • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @07:20PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @07:20PM (#396323)

        I dunno, your plan here seems to be only to present a narrative. Unless you can go into the evidence, discussion of alternative explanations, etc I don't see how it is any different than pushing creationism.

      • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday September 02 2016, @01:34AM

        by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Friday September 02 2016, @01:34AM (#396503)

        or rolled out their own rival timeline.

        Like the Troll AC modded Flamebait who replied to you with the old "Alternative explanations" nonsense, because apparently you're as bad as a creationist if you don't.