uk666 5,298 Report post Posted March 1, 2017 Scientists Discover Evidence of Oldest Life on Earth Ancient life: These clumps of iron and filaments show similarities to modern microbes Science nerds are still giddy from last week’s discovery of seven earth-sized planets orbiting a nearby star, in part because it brings researchers closer to the most tantalizing question of all: How can we find life on other planets? It would help if we had some idea of how life started on earth. A geological breakthrough announced on Wednesday in Nature makes that question slightly easier to answer. Scientists examining the chemical makeup of some of the Earth’s oldest rocks, located in northwestern Canada, may have found the oldest-known chemical fossils of bacteria. The team believes they are the remains of microbes that thrived near volcanic vents on the sea floor from 3.8 to 4.3 billion years ago. Matthew Dodd, a Ph.D. student at the London Centre for Nanotechnology, and seven colleagues offered several lines of evidence to support their claim. The chemical patterns they found look just like known deposits of vent-loving microbes in much more recent samples from other locations. And the compounds they identified through laser imaging are consistent with the waste and remains of iron-eating bacteria that live near hydrothermal vents today. Iron-rich tubes from the Quebec rocks provide additional evidence for life As geologists push the oldest evidence for life farther, back in time, and as astronomers pivot from finding planets to studying the chemicals they are made of, these far-flung fields of science will increasingly converge on the search for life elsewhere. The authors conclude their paper by inviting astronomers to join in their research. "Given this new evidence ... ancient submarine-hydrothermal vent systems should be viewed as potential sites for the origins of life on Earth, and thus primary targets in the search for extra-terrestrial life." bbc Artwork: Life appears to have started hundreds of millions of years after the formation of Earth 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
