Fossils discovered by UNSW scientists in 3.48 billion year old hot spring deposits in the Pilbara region of Western Australia have pushed back by 580 million years the earliest known existence of microbial life on land. "Our exciting findings don't just extend back the record of life living in hot springs by 3 billion years, they indicate that life was inhabiting the land much earlier than previously thought, by up to about 580 million years," says study first author, UNSW PhD candidate, Tara Djokic. "The discovery of potential biological signatures in these ancient hot springs in Western Australia provides a geological perspective that may lend weight to a land-based origin of life," says Ms Djokic. The study, by Ms Djokic and Professors Martin Van Kranendonk, Malcolm Walter and Colin Ward of UNSW Sydney, and Professor Kathleen Campbell of the University of Auckland, is published in the journal Nature Communications. They interpreted the deposits were formed on land, not in the ocean, by identifying the presence of geyserite – a mineral deposit formed from near boiling-temperature, silica-rich, fluids that is only found in a terrestrial hot spring environment. “This shows a diverse variety of life existed in fresh water, on land, very early in Earth’s history,” says Professor Van Kranendonk, Director of the Australian Centre for Astrobiology and head of the UNSW school of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences.
Every time we find something from the past we find something that can help us in the future. Finding information about our earth can help us understand animals better. Knowing the age of the earth is always helpful. Rocks can tell us what has happened to earth and they also have so much history and can always help us understand our past.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170509194434.htm