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Questioning the evidence for Earth's oldest fossils - Nature

  • ️Grassineau, Nathalie V.
  • ️Thu Mar 07 2002
  • Letter
  • Published: 07 March 2002

Nature volume 416, pages 76–81 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

Structures resembling remarkably preserved bacterial and cyanobacterial microfossils from ∼3,465-million-year-old Apex cherts of the Warrawoona Group in Western Australia1,2,3,4 currently provide the oldest morphological evidence for life on Earth and have been taken to support an early beginning for oxygen-producing photosynthesis5. Eleven species of filamentous prokaryote, distinguished by shape and geometry, have been put forward as meeting the criteria required of authentic Archaean microfossils1,2,3,4,5, and contrast with other microfossils dismissed as either unreliable or unreproducible1,3,6,7. These structures are nearly a billion years older than putative cyanobacterial biomarkers8, genomic arguments for cyanobacteria9, an oxygenic atmosphere10 and any comparably diverse suite of microfossils5. Here we report new research on the type and re-collected material, involving mapping, optical and electron microscopy, digital image analysis, micro-Raman spectroscopy and other geochemical techniques. We reinterpret the purported microfossil-like structure as secondary artefacts formed from amorphous graphite within multiple generations of metalliferous hydrothermal vein chert and volcanic glass. Although there is no support for primary biological morphology, a Fischer–Tropsch-type synthesis of carbon compounds and carbon isotopic fractionation is inferred for one of the oldest known hydrothermal systems on Earth.

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Acknowledgements

We thank C. A. Stoakes, A. T. Brasier and D. Huston for assistance with field work; N. Charnley, D. Sansom and A. T. Brasier for laboratory support; the Natural History Museum, London, for the loan of the type slides and re-collected material; R. Buick, J. Farmer, J. P. Grotzinger, A. H. Knoll, E. Nisbet, S. Moorbath, J. W. Schopf and R. E. Summons for comments on earlier versions of the manuscript; and The Royal Society, NASA Astrobiology Institute and The Carnegie Institution of Washington for support. This paper is published by permission of the Director of the Geological Survey of Western Australia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Earth Sciences Department, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PR, UK

    Martin D. Brasier, Owen R. Green, Andrew P. Jephcoat & Annette K. Kleppe

  2. Geological Survey of Western Australia, 100 Plain Street, East Perth, 6004, Western Australia, Australia

    Martin J. Van Kranendonk

  3. Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, 0200, ACT, Australia

    John F. Lindsay

  4. School of Earth, Environmental and Physical Sciences, University of Portsmouth, Burnaby Road, Portsmouth, PO1 3QL, UK

    Andrew Steele

  5. Department of Geology, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham Hill, TW20 0EX, Surrey, UK

    Nathalie V. Grassineau

Authors

  1. Martin D. Brasier

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  2. Owen R. Green

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  3. Andrew P. Jephcoat

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  4. Annette K. Kleppe

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  5. Martin J. Van Kranendonk

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  6. John F. Lindsay

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  7. Andrew Steele

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  8. Nathalie V. Grassineau

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Correspondence to Martin D. Brasier.

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Brasier, M., Green, O., Jephcoat, A. et al. Questioning the evidence for Earth's oldest fossils. Nature 416, 76–81 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/416076a

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  • Received: 14 February 2001

  • Accepted: 24 January 2002

  • Issue Date: 07 March 2002

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/416076a

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