Microfossils may be evidence life began ‘very quickly’ after Earth formed

The strongest evidence yet that life began far earlier than thought is what scientists believe they have found.

It would suggest the conditions necessary for the emergence of life are relatively basic.

The chance that life exists on other planets increases if life is relatively quick to emerge.

Five years ago, the Nuvvuagittuq supracrustal belt in Quebec, Canada, was announced as the location of microfossils. The team suggested that the iron oxide called haematite could have been made by a group ofbacteria living around the vents that used iron-based chemical reactions to obtain their energy.

The rocks are thought to be at least 3.75 billion years old, and possibly as old as 4.28 billion years, according to scientific dating. The oldest reported microfossils were dated to 3.46 billion years ago and 3.8 billion years ago, making the Canadian specimen the oldest direct evidence of life on Earth.

A stem with parallel branches on one side that is nearly a centimetre long has been found in the rock, as well as hundreds of distorted spheres, along with the tubes and filaments.

One thing that I think is amazing is the sheer size of the tectonic branching structure, which is several millimetres, if not more than a centimetre in size.

I think what we are seeing is a group of cells working together to form a larger, thicker haematite.

The team found mineralised chemical byproducts in the rock that were consistent with ancient microbes that lived off iron, sulphur and carbon dioxide.

It is possible that a variety of life may have existed as little as 300m years after Earth was formed.

It makes sense that they are just as old as the volcanic rocks that are embedded in them. After Earth formed, there was life taking place, eating iron and sulphur.

Some people are not sure if the structures are biological. These comparisons are in rocks or environments that have not been subjected to the high degree of metamorphism of the Nuvvuagittuq rock.

She said that she was concerned about the parallelism of the filaments and that it looked as if they were following the crystal lattices of the host mineral. The feature is not a microbial one.

The sulphur signature may have a biological origin. It is possible that the Nuvvuagittuq jasperite may have hosted traces of life associated with the hydrothermal vents.