Scientists have found the oldest fossil on Earth about 3.75 billion years ago in a remote location in northern Quebec, Canada.. Fossils can be 4.2 billion years old – about the same time that Earth appeared.
If these fossils are biological, they could push what we know about Earth to at least 300 million years. In addition, this research could help pinpoint the exact moment when life began on Earth.
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The microbial fossils were collected by Dominic Papineau, professor of geochemistry and astrobiology at University College, London during an expedition to Canada in 2008..
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The Nuvvuagittuq Supracrustal Belt in Quebec contains some of the oldest rocks on Earth. When the paper was originally published in 2017, scientists weren’t sure whether the organism was of biological or geological origin. Since then, the paper’s authors have confirmed that these structures could be early life forms living near hydrothermal vents in Earth’s oldest oceans.
Life on Earth begins with Earth
The “unprecedented” new findings published in a study in Science Advances reveal “a diverse microbial ecosystem on primitive Earth that may be common to other planetary bodies, including Mars.”
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What does this mean? Life on Earth began almost at the same time that the Earth formed – about 4 billion years ago. So life didn’t take long to develop on a planet with the right conditions.
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“This creates a lot of new opportunities to go back in time to the origin of life and specifically look for things of this kind on other planets,” Papineau said.
In New studyPapineau and his team are trying to unravel the biological architecture of these fossils to highlight that these organisms actually formed naturally and not as geological traces.
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Life on Earth may have started near ocean vents that are good sources of energy – be it carbon, iron, hydrogen, or oxygen. These vents were also found on Jupiter’s moon Europa, Saturn’s moon Enceladus, giving scientists hope of finding life forms in similar vents in these structures.
What do you think about this groundbreaking discovery that could redraw the history of life on Earth? Let us know in the comments below. More in the world Technique Dan ScienceRead on indiatimes.com.
reference
Ferreira, b. (2022b, 13 April). Scientists say the discovery significantly rewrote the history of life on Earth. representative.
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