Iron oxide-containing tubes from the Nuvvuagittuq belt hydrothermal vent deposits. Matthew Dodd
Scientists may have uncovered microfossils containing evidence of microbes that lived at least 3.77 billion ago, according to a study published yesterday (March 2) in Nature.
“If indeed their analyses and interpretations are correct, then life arose rapidly on Earth, soon after the planet itself began to stabilize,” astrobiologist Kevin Hand of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who was not involved in the study, told the National Geographic. “As the froth of geology began to cool, biology established its role as a planetary process.”
University College London researchers analyzed iron-rich rocks from the Nuvvuagittuq belt, an area in northern Canada that, according to geologists, is between 3.77 and 4.28 billion years old. They sliced the rocks to pieces thin enough to study under a microscope, and ...
