Life on Earth started at least 3.465 billion years ago - West Australia fossils

[gary]

In a Dec 21 2017 article at Astronomy magazine (http://astronomy.com/news/2017/12/oldest-fossil-ever-found), Jake Parks reports on
a study published December 18 in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences.



Full story here :-
http://astronomy.com/news/2017/12/oldest-fossil-ever-found

Story also at phys.org including photo of part of the Apex Chert, a rock
formation in western Australia that is among the oldest and best-preserved rock deposits in the world :-
https://phys.org/news/2017-12-oldest-fossils-life-earth-began.html



Paper here by Schopf et. al. (requires subscription) :-
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/12/12/1718063115

[leon]

Thanks for that Gary, very interesting indeed.

Leon

[multiweb]

Fascinating to discover how old life can be and even more amazing to have these rocks in our backyard undisturbed for so long. A real time capsule on an ever changing earth.