Author: ["Matthew S. Dodd","Dominic Papineau","Tor Grenne","John F. Slack","Martin Rittner","Franco Pirajno","Jonathan O’Neil","Crispin T. S. Little"]
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Abstract
Although it is not known when or where life on Earth began, some of the earliest habitable environments may have been submarine-hydrothermal vents. Here we describe putative fossilized microorganisms that are at least 3,770 million and possibly 4,280 million years old in ferruginous sedimentary rocks, interpreted as seafloor-hydrothermal vent-related precipitates, from the Nuvvuagittuq belt in Quebec, Canada. These structures occur as micrometre-scale haematite tubes and filaments with morphologies and mineral assemblages similar to those of filamentous microorganisms from modern hydrothermal vent precipitates and analogous microfossils in younger rocks. The Nuvvuagittuq rocks contain isotopically light carbon in carbonate and carbonaceous material, which occurs as graphitic inclusions in diagenetic carbonate rosettes, apatite blades intergrown among carbonate rosettes and magnetite–haematite granules, and is associated with carbonate in direct contact with the putative microfossils. Collectively, these observations are consistent with an oxidized biomass and provide evidence for biological activity in submarine-hydrothermal environments more than 3,770 million years ago. Perhaps the earliest known signs of life have been found in Quebec, where features such as haematite tubes suggest that filamentous microbes lived around hydrothermal vents at least 3,770 million years ago. Hydrothermal vents on the sea floor have been thought to be some of the earliest habitable environments on the planet. Now Matthew Dodd et al. suggest that possible signatures of life in and around hydrothermal vents at least 3,770 million years ago could represent the earliest evidence for life on Earth. Jasper and carbonate rocks from northern Quebec, Canada preserve features thought to indicate the presence of filamentous microorganisms. These features include haematite tubes that preserve morphologies that are indicative of microbial activity in much younger rocks.Cite this article
Dodd, M., Papineau, D., Grenne, T. et al. Evidence for early life in Earth’s oldest hydrothermal vent precipitates. Nature 543, 60–64 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature21377 