3.46-Billion-Year-Old 'Fossils' Were Not Created By Life Forms

sciencehabit writes: What are the oldest fossils on Earth? For a long time, a 3.46-billion-year-old rock from Western Australia seemed to hold the record. A 1993 Science paper (abstract) suggested that the Apex chert contained tiny, wormy structures that could have been fossilized cell walls of some of the world's first cyanobacteria. But now there is more evidence that these structures have nothing to do with life. The elongated filaments were instead created by minerals forming in hydrothermal systems, researchers report (abstract). After the minerals were formed, carbon glommed on to the edges, leaving behind an organic signature that looked suspiciously like cell walls.

Comments

One might call them...

[Anonymous Coward]

fauxcells

Re:Baptists are already writing this week's sermon

[garyisabusyguy]

More like the Church of Robotology now that there is conclusive evidence that machines were first and created all life

Suck it meatbags!

Re:FIrst post for fossils

[pitchpipe]

And to think, you're the successful product of 3.5 billion years of evolution. I guess this is proof that not every branch or individual is viable.

Re:Old? Old.

[NoMaster]

I saw something that looked like a three-way cross between a rat, a jackrabbit and Dwayne Johnson

So, apart from that, what did you think of Melbourne?

Do you think that some distant....

[mark-t]

... future descendant might try and argue, by the same reasoning, that the "people" (as we currently call them) in this time were not really alive either... that all we actually are is a bunch of organic compounds arranged in a pattern that suspiciously behaves like what they consider to be life, but actually isn't.

Re:Waste Dump?

[Hognoxious]

I swear some ancient civilization used Australia as a waste dump and testing grounds for some seriously bad sh**

OK, we confess. It was us.

Yours faithfully,
    England.