Proposed early signs of life not set in stone

van Zuilen, Mark A.

doi:10.1038/d41586-018-06994-x

NEWS AND VIEWS
17 October 2018

Proposed early signs of life not set in stone

Efforts to find early traces of life on Earth often focus on structures in ancient rocks, called stromatolites, that formed by microbial activity. One of the oldest proposed stromatolite discoveries has now been questioned.

Mark A. van Zuilen⁰

Mark A. van Zuilen
1. Mark A. van Zuilen is in the Department of Geomicrobiology, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris Diderot University, UMR 7154 CNRS, Paris 75005, France.
View author publications

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Access through your institution

Buy or subscribe

In 2016, Nutman et al.¹ reported the discovery of cone-shaped structures in 3.7-billion-year-old rocks in the Isua Supracrustal Belt, Greenland, that they identified as being stromatolites — structures that arise as a result of the presence of water-dwelling microorganisms. Previously, the earliest known stromatolites were reported to be those in 3.45-billion-year-old rocks in Australia². Being able to accurately date the first signs of the emergence of life has important implications for understanding how life on Earth evolved. However, writing in Nature, Allwood et al.³ now report their own independent analysis of these ancient rocks in Greenland, and argue that, in this particular case, the structures that Nutman and colleagues interpreted to be stromatolites instead arose by non-biological processes. This finding shows that a natural process that does not require any input from a living organism can mimic the formation of a structure that normally counts as a strong indication of previous biological activity.

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Nature 563, 190-191 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-06994-x

References

Nutman, A. P., Bennett, V. C., Friend, C. R. L., Van Kranendonk, M. J. & Chivas, A. R. Nature 537, 535–538 (2016).
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Allwood, A. C., Walter, M. R., Kamber, B. S., Marshall, C. P. & Burch, I. W. Nature 441, 714–718 (2006).
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Allwood, A. C. et al. Nature 563, 241–244 (2018).
Article Google Scholar
Walter, M. R. (ed.) Stromatolites. Developments in Sedimentology 20 (Elsevier, 1976).
Google Scholar
Grotzinger, J. P., Rothman, D. H. Nature 383, 423–425 (1996).
Article Google Scholar
Pope, M. C., Grotzinger, J. P., Schreiber, B. C. J. Sediment. Res. 70, 1139–1151 (2000).
Article Google Scholar
Grotzinger, J. P., Knoll, A. H. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 27, 313–358 (1999).
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Bosak, T. et al. Geobiology 10, 384–401 (2012).
Article PubMed Google Scholar
Bolhar, R., Kamber, B. S., Moorbath, S., Fedo, C. M., Whitehouse, M. J. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 222, 43–60 (2004).
Article Google Scholar
Boak, J. L., Dymek, R. F. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 59, 155–176 (1982).
Article Google Scholar