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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.
  1. 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.

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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.

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Nature 563, 190-191 (2018)

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

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