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Evidence for early life in Earths oldest hydrothermal vent precipitates
By dating the quartz encasing the fossils, it's believed that they're up to 4.28 billion years old on our planet that's 4.5 billion years old! If true, life appeared "soon" after Earth was formed! It's believed that the fossils originated near a hydrothermal vent.
Evidence for early life in Earths oldest hydrothermal vent precipitates
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v543/n7643/full/nature21377.html
Although it is not known when or where life on Earth began, some of the earliest habitable environments may have been submarine-hydrothermal vents. Here we describe putative fossilized microorganisms that are at least 3,770 million and possibly 4,280 million years old in ferruginous sedimentary rocks, interpreted as seafloor-hydrothermal vent-related precipitates, from the Nuvvuagittuq belt in Quebec, Canada. These structures occur as micrometre-scale haematite tubes and filaments with morphologies and mineral assemblages similar to those of filamentous microorganisms from modern hydrothermal vent precipitates and analogous microfossils in younger rocks. The Nuvvuagittuq rocks contain isotopically light carbon in carbonate and carbonaceous material, which occurs as graphitic inclusions in diagenetic carbonate rosettes, apatite blades intergrown among carbonate rosettes and magnetite–haematite granules, and is associated with carbonate in direct contact with the putative microfossils. Collectively, these observations are consistent with an oxidized biomass and provide evidence for biological activity in submarine-hydrothermal environments more than 3,770 million years ago.
NYT article about it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/01/science/earths-oldest-bacteria-fossils.html?_r=0
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http://www.divediscover.whoi.edu/ventcd/vent_discovery/index_sr_future_et.html
Hydrothermal vents taught us that life could exist without sunlight or oxygen, in extreme conditions, by using unusual chemicals as an energy source. That jolted scientists into taking another look at the possibility of life on planets that previously seemed too hostile to support life.
In this new field called astrobiology, one of the most intriguing planetary bodies is Europa, a moon of Jupiter. Scientists believe Europa is volcanically active and may have an ocean below its ice-covered surface. The same ingredients—volcanic heat and water—form hydrothermal vents on Earth. Are there hydrothermal vents on Europa? Do they support life?
Mars was once volcanically active, and there is evidence that it once had abundant water. Did life develop on Mars? Do microbes still live deep beneath its dry, barren surface today? Can microbes be transported between planets—via meteorites, for example?
By studying microbes in hydrothermal systems on Earth, scientists are learning how life may develop and survive in extreme environments on other planetary bodies. The vehicles, tools, sensors, and techniques that scientists are developing to study life within and beneath Earth’s volcanic seafloor crust will be similar to those that scientists will use to explore remote environments and search for life elsewhere in the universe.
