1. Early Life on Earth.
- Author
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Braun, Ashley
- Subjects
- *
FOSSIL microorganisms , *OCEAN bottom , *NICKEL compounds , *X-ray imaging , *GREENSTONE belts , *SOLAR system - Abstract
Now, an international team of researchers led by geobiologist Barbara Cava-lazzi at the University of Bologna, Italy, has discovered evidence of fossilized microbes dating to roughly 3.42 billion years ago in a hydrothermal system just under the seafloor. The presence of certain nickel compounds in a hydrothermal environment suggests that the putative microbes likely produced or used methane in their metabolism, as modern microbes do in similar anoxic environments today. From the collective evidence, the researchers conclude that these microfossils represent the oldest methane-cycling archaea microbes found in a subsurface environment. [Extracted from the article]
- Published
- 2021