As the Mars Rover sets out to look for evidence of life on another planet, scientists back on Earth suggest viruses played a key role in creating stromatolites, our planet's earliest lifeforms.
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 19, 2021
2
677
The earliest morphological traces of life on Earth are often highly controversial, both because non-biological processes can produce relatively similar structures and because such fossils have often been subjected to advanced ...
Astrobiology
Nov 7, 2022
13
311
When Australian scientists presented evidence in 2016 of life on Earth 3.7 billon years ago—pushing the record back 220 million years—it was a big deal, influencing even the search for life on Mars.
Earth Sciences
Oct 17, 2018
18
134
Western Australia's famous 3.5-billion-year-old stromatolites contain microbial remains of some of the earliest life on Earth, UNSW scientists have found.
Earth Sciences
Sep 26, 2019
2
1037
A study that used a new digital library and machine reading system to suck the factual marrow from millions of geologic publications dating back decades has unraveled a longstanding mystery of ancient life: Why did easy-to-see ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 30, 2017
0
50
Stromatolites are the most ancient fossils on Earth, and these structures built by microbes can still be found forming today in various places around the globe. Although they provide a straight line of life’s history ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 5, 2010
0
0
Stromatolites are dome- or column-like sedimentary rock structures that are formed in shallow water, layer by layer, over long periods of geologic time. Now, researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 16, 2009
2
0
CU Boulder geologist Brian Hynek has helped to document what may be a unique kind of ecosystem on Earth—and a possible window into the earliest stages of life on this planet 3.5 billion years ago, and even life on ancient ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 6, 2023
1
47
The widespread disappearance of stromatolites, the earliest visible manifestation of life on Earth, may have been driven by single-celled organisms called foraminifera.
Earth Sciences
May 28, 2013
4
0
Look at the world-renowned stromatolites protruding from saline seas at Hamelin Pool in Shark Bay and you could be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about.
Earth Sciences
Mar 7, 2016
0
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