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Fossils discovered by UNSW scientists in 3.48 billion year old hot spring deposits in the Pilbara region of Western Australia have pushed back by 580 million years the earliest known existence of microbial life on land. Previously, the world's oldest evidence for microbial life on land came from 2.7- 2.9 billion-year-old deposits in South Africa containing organic matter-rich ancient soils.
"Our exciting findings don't just extend back the record of life living in hot springs by 3 billion years, they indicate that life was inhabiting the land much earlier than previously thought, by up to about 580 million years," says study first author, UNSW PhD candidate, Tara Djokic. "This may have implications for an origin of life in freshwater hot springs on land, rather than the more widely discussed idea that life developed in the ocean and adapted to land later."
Scientists are considering two hypotheses regarding the origin of life. Either that it began in deep sea hydrothermal vents, or alternatively that it began on land in a version of Charles Darwin's "warm little pond". "The discovery of potential biological signatures in these ancient hot springs in Western Australia provides a geological perspective that may lend weight to a land-based origin of life," says Ms Djokic.
Earliest signs of life on land preserved in ca. 3.5 Ga hot spring deposits (open, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15263) (DX)
Previously:
3.7 Billion-Year-Old Fossil Found
Oldest Evidence of Life on Earth Found in 3.77-4.28 Billion Year Old Fossils
Researchers Use Genetic Analysis to Determine That Comb Jellies Were the Earliest Animals
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @06:23PM
Seen it. Life originated in La Barre, France in the same place where Picard was later born. It was the reason Q was obsessed with Picard as representative for all of humanity.