Palaeontology
3.4 billion-year-old fossils discovered
By
T.K. RandallAugust 22, 2011 ·
16 comments
Image Credit: David Wacey
Geologists have unearthed fossilized single cell organisms that lived over 3 billion years ago.
The fossils are believed to be the oldest ever found and confirm the suspected timescale at which life evolved on the planet soon after the "late heavy bombardment" around 3.85 billion years ago.
The new microfossils are described in Sunday’s issue of Nature Geoscience by a team led by David Wacey of the University of Western Australia and Martin D. Brasier of the University of Oxford. The fossils were found in sandstone at the base of the Strelley Pool rock formation in Western Australia.
Source:
New York Times |
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