Wednesday, 30 November 2016

Neoarchean bacteria thrived without oxygen 2.5 billion years ago

Professor Andrew Czaja shows the layer of rock where the bacteria were discovered

When you think about the basic ingredients for life to thrive on Earth, no doubt water and oxygen pop to mind. But there was a time on our planet when our atmosphere only had one-one thousandth of one percent of the amount of oxygen it has now, yet there were plenty of life forms around then too, although proof of them has been scarce. A recent discovery of fossilized bacteria dating to about 2.5 billion years ago provides long-sought-for evidence that the Earth was crawling with life even though it lacked much oxygen during a phase in our planet's development known as the Neoarchean Eon.

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Category: Science

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