Diverse Life Forms Evolved 3.75 Billion Years Ago

[shunyadragon]

More interesting discoveries of the earliest knon time of the evolution of life on earth. Neat computer simulation picture.

Source: https://scitechdaily.com//diverse-life-forms-evolved-3-75-billion-years-ago-challenging-the-conventional-view-of-when-life-began/

BIOLOGY APRIL 14, 2022
Diverse Life Forms Evolved 3.75 Billion Years Ago – Challenging the Conventional View of When Life Began


Diverse life forms may have evolved earlier than previously thought. Diverse microbial life existed on Earth at least 3.75 billion years ago,


Diverse life forms may have evolved earlier than previously thought.


Diverse microbial life existed on Earth at least 3.75 billion years ago, suggests a new study led by University College London (UCL) researchers that challenges the conventional view of when life began.

Diverse microbial life existed on Earth at least 3.75 billion years ago, suggests a new study led by UCL researchers that challenges the conventional view of when life began.

For the study, published in Science Advances, the research team analyzed a fist-sized rock from Quebec, Canada, estimated to be between 3.75 and 4.28 billion years old. In an earlier Nature paper, the team found tiny filaments, knobs, and tubes in the rock which appeared to have been made by bacteria.
Centimeter-size pectinate-branching and parallel-aligned filaments composed of red hematite, some with twists, tubes, and different kinds of hematite spheroids. These are the oldest microfossils on Earth, which lived on the sea-floor near hydrothermal vents, and they metabolized iron, sulfur, and carbon dioxide. Nuvvuagittuq Supracrustal Belt, Québec, Canada. Credit: Dominic Papineau

However, not all scientists agreed that these structures – dating about 300 million years earlier than what is more commonly accepted as the first sign of ancient life – were of biological origin.

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Now, after extensive further analysis of the rock, the team has discovered a much larger and more complex structure – a stem with parallel branches on one side that is nearly a centimeter long – as well as hundreds of distorted spheres, or ellipsoids, alongside the tubes and filaments.

The researchers say that, while some of the structures could conceivably have been created through chance chemical reactions, the “tree-like” stem with parallel branches was most likely biological in origin, as no structure created via chemistry alone has been found like it.

Layer-deflecting bright red concretion of haematitic chert (an iron-rich and silica-rich rock), which contains tubular and filamentous microfossils. This co-called jasper is in contact with a dark green volcanic rock in the top right and represent hydrothermal vent precipitates on the seafloor. Nuvvuagittuq Supracrustal Belt, Québec, Canada. Canadian quarter for scale. Credit: Dr. Papineau

The team also provide evidence of how the bacteria got their energy in different ways. They found mineralized chemical by-products in the rock that are consistent with ancient microbes living off iron, sulfur, and possibly also carbon dioxide and light through a form of photosynthesis not involving oxygen.

These new findings, according to the researchers, suggest that a variety of microbial life may have existed on primordial Earth, potentially as little as 300 million years after the planet formed.

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[rogue06]

Already a thread on this. You really need to start checking first.

Cool graphic though

[shunyadragon]

Already a thread on this. You really need to start checking first.

Cool graphic though

. . . but this thread is based on science with good pics, and not phony unethical ID based on a religious agenda. I do have a tendency to ignore Lee's threads.