3.4 Billion Year Old Archean Microfossils Link South Africa and Australia
The researchers report that the “Kromberg Formation (KF) forms are bona fide, organic Archean microfossils and represent some of the oldest morphologically preserved organisms on Earth,” in the July issue of Precambrian Research. They also state that the combination of morphology, occurrence and carbon isotope values argues that the lenticular forms represent microbes that had planktonic stages to their life cycles.
This is a map showing the location of the samples from South Africa. The arrow points to the specific location where Dr. Maud Walsh collected the samples. They are in a geologic formation called the Kromberg Formation and are located southwest of the town of Barberton, in the Barberton Greenstone Belt (BGB on the small inset) – often referred to as the Barberton Mountain Land.
These fossils all occur in sedimentary rocks — chert — in what was once shallow water. And, according to the researchers, it appears that the samples from two sites in Australia and one in South Africa are related.
“Many people believe that the Kaapvaal Craton of Southern Africa and the Pilbara Craton of Australia formed a single continent at that time,” said Christopher H. House, professor of geosciences and director, Penn State Astrobiology Research Center. “But we really don’t know.”
Lenticular organic microfossils in the Kromberg Formation, Onverwacht Group, Barberton Mountain Land of South Africa. Image shown is an optical photomicrograph of a polished thin section, taken in transmitted light.
Image: Taken by Dorothy Oehler on a sample provided by Maud Walsh (Louisiana State University)
These microfossils are unusual not only because they are so old, appearing in the geologic record about a billion years after the Earth formed 4.6 billion years ago, but because they are large, complex, plankton-like and autotrophs — organisms that can turn inorganic elements into organic material.
Familiar fossils such as trilobites were alive just 200 million years ago and first appeared 500 million years ago. The lenticular organisms appeared 3,450 million years ago, spread at least from where Australia was then to South Africa and then disappeared from the fossil record. They are larger and more elaborate than any other organism existing around at that time.
“These fossils don’t appear to relate to anything on the Earth that we know of,” said House. “They seem to be an experiment in adaptation that does not leave a lineage.”
The researchers analyzed the fossils to determine the isotopic relationship between carbon 12 and carbon 13, two isotopes of carbon that exist in everything but whose ratios can indicate organic material. They used Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy, a process where an ion beam kicks ions off the surface of a substance so that those ions can be identified.
“When the carbon isotope data came back we were excited,” said Oehler. “It helped to confirm the biogenicity of the South African forms and told us that the organic microfossils from the three deposits were likely to represent organisms that were biologically related.”
Lenticular organic microfossils in the Strelley Pool Formation (Waterfall locality), of Australia. Image shown is an optical photomicrograph of a polished thin section, taken in transmitted light.
Also working on this project were Kenichiro Sugitani, professor, Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Japan and Australian Centre for Astrobiology, University of New South Wales discoverer of the Australian examples; and Ming-Chang Liu, academic specialist, Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences, University of California at Los Angeles.
The NASA Astrobiology Program, the Planetary Space Institute, Louisiana State University Council for Research, Louisiana Space Consortium, Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science and the National Science Foundation supported this work.
Contacts and sources:
A’ndrea Elyse Messer
Source: http://www.ineffableisland.com/2017/07/34-billion-year-old-archean.html
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