Oldest living fossil.
Posted on 08/22/2011 3:10:55 AM PDT by Natufian
The fossilised remains of microbes that lived beside the sea in the earliest chapter of life on Earth have been discovered in a slab of rock in Western Australia.
Researchers found the tiny fossils in rock formations that date to 3.4bn years ago, making them strong candidates to be the oldest microbes found. Some clung to grains of sand that had gathered on one of the first known stretches of beach.
The findings paint a vivid picture of life arising when the first landmasses began to emerge in fragmentary fashion from the oceans. At the time, volcanic eruptions spewed gas and lava, while a blanket of thick cloud greyed the skies. The moon – much closer then than it is today – pulled the oceans into vast tidal surges. There was no breathable oxygen.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Oldest living fossil.
That didn’t take long.
I think I have a very “scientifically minded” biblical world view, but this one had me spill my coffee:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/science/earth/22fossil.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=fossils&st=cse
“Team Claims it has found oldest fossils.”
Then when you get to paragraph seven:
“Cell-like structures in ancient rocks can be deceiving — many have turned out to be artifacts formed by nonbiological processes. In this case, the geologists have gathered considerable circumstantial evidence that the structures they see are biological.”
old commies seem to live forever.
No breathable oxygen ? Obviously Bush’s fault.
You rarely get to read what the scientists wrote. You most often get to read what a journalist thinks the scientists meant. Salt, grain etc.
As badly written as it is, that’s serious business. Bacteriae often look in fossils like strings of beads; you know, exactly like a stream of bubbles. “Circumstantial evidence” here could mean something like traces of amino acids, and that would be quite useful (in contrast to what “circumstantial evidence” formally means).
That said, in general I think that non-direct, not reproducible evidence like fossils must be taken as guidance, not as a primary clue to generate models. Evidence or not, it must be noticed that it could be just bubbles.
Oh my God! I've been there!
New Jersey!
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