Papineau, Dominic;
She, Zhenbing;
Dodd, Matthew;
Iacoviello, Francesco;
Slack, John;
Hauri, Erik;
Shearing, Paul;
(2022)
Metabolically diverse primordial microbial communities in Earth’s oldest seafloor-hydrothermal jasper.
Science Advances
, 8
(15)
, Article eabm2296. 10.1126/sciadv.abm2296.
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Abstract
The oldest putative fossils occur as hematite filaments and tubes in jasper-carbonate banded iron formations from the 4280- to 3750-Ma Nuvvuagittuq Supracrustal Belt, Québec. If biological in origin, these filaments might have affinities with modern descendants; however, if abiotic, they could indicate complex prebiotic forms on early Earth. Here, we report images of centimeter-size, autochthonous hematite filaments that are pectinate-branching, parallel-aligned, undulated, and containing Fe2+-oxides. These microstructures are considered microfossils because of their mineral associations and resemblance to younger microfossils, modern Fe-bacteria from hydrothermal environments, and the experimental products of heated Fe-oxidizing bacteria. Additional clusters of irregular hematite ellipsoids could reflect abiotic processes of silicification, producing similar structures and thus yielding an uncertain origin. Millimeter-sized chalcopyrite grains within the jasper-carbonate rocks have 34S- and 33S-enrichments consistent with microbial S-disproportionation and an O2-poor atmosphere. Collectively, the observations suggest a diverse microbial ecosystem on the primordial Earth that may be common on other planetary bodies, including Mars.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Metabolically diverse primordial microbial communities in Earth’s oldest seafloor-hydrothermal jasper |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1126/sciadv.abm2296 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abm2296 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2022 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited. |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Earth Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10146849 |
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