COSEE Ocean Systems: News
3.5 Billion-Year-Old Fossils Challenge Ideas About Earth's Start
Description: In the northwest corner of Australia, there is a region called the Pilbara Craton, which formed about 3.5 billion years ago. From a seam in one of the hills there, a jumble of ancient, orange-Creamsicle rock spills forth: a deposit called the Apex Chert. Within this rock, viewable only through a microscope, some fossils resemble flattened worms. They are controversial rock samples, and they might represent some of the oldest forms of life ever found. Now researchers lobbed another salvo in the decades-long debate about the nature of these forms. According to new research they are indeed fossil life, and they date to 3.465 billion years ago. The fossils imply that life diversified remarkably early in the planet's tumultuous youth. [Source: Wired]
URL: https://www.wired.com/story/35-billion-year-old-fossils-challenge-ideas-about-earths-start/
Availability: Full Text
Source: Wired
Publish Date: 1/27/2018
Reading Level: Basic
Page Length:  

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