Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The theory of panspermia speculates that life on Earth may have come from biological matter carried by space dust [93] or meteorites. [94] While current geochemical evidence dates the origin of life to possibly as early as 4.1 Ga, and fossil evidence shows life at 3.5 Ga, some researchers speculate that life may have started nearly 4.5 billion ...
There are only two locations in the world containing rock formations that are intact enough to preserve evidence of early life: the Kaapvaal Craton in Southern Africa and the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia. [4] The Dresser Formation is located in the Pilbara Craton, and contains sedimentary rock from the Paleoarchean Era.
The earliest evidence for life on Earth includes: 3.8 billion-year-old biogenic hematite in a banded iron formation of the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt in Canada; [30] graphite in 3.7 billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks in western Greenland; [31] and microbial mat fossils in 3.48 billion-year-old sandstone in Western Australia.
In respect of having 'some of the oldest, if not the oldest, rocks on Earth, with potentially earliest traces of life', the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) included the 'Hadean to Eoarchean Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt' in its assemblage of 100 'geological heritage sites' around the world in a listing published in October 2022.
The earliest evidence for life on Earth is graphite of biogenic origin found in 3.7 billion–year-old metasedimentary rocks discovered in Western Greenland. [42] Lithified stromatolites on the shores of Lake Thetis, Western Australia. Archean stromatolites are the first direct fossil traces of life on Earth.
The geology was reassessed in 2007 with the separation out from the geologically named Pilbara Craton of a thick succession of interbedded clastic or chemical sedimentary rocks and volcanic rocks forming the Fortescue, Hamersley, and Turee Creek basins that are usually aged from 2.78–2.42 billion years old and the younger volcano-sedimentary ...
Geologic time shown in a diagram called a geological clock, showing the relative lengths of the eons of Earth's history and noting major events The geological history of Earth follows the major geological events in Earth's past based on the geologic time scale , a system of chronological measurement based on the study of the planet's rock ...
The Hadean (/ h eɪ ˈ d iː ə n, ˈ h eɪ d i ə n / hay-DEE-ən, HAY-dee-ən) is the first and oldest of the four known geologic eons of Earth's history, starting with the planet's formation about 4.6 billion years ago [4] [5] (estimated 4567.30 ± 0.16 million years ago [2] set by the age of the oldest solid material in the Solar System — protoplanetary disk dust particles — found as ...