Scientists say the identification of the oldest forms of life on the planet
Scientists believe they have found traces of a prehistoric fossilized mycobacterial life existed on our planet about 3.5 billion years ago. The new finding, described in the journal Astrobiology, is the oldest of the currently known terrestrial life forms. "It is the oldest known forms of life. We have traces of ecosystems that existed 3.5 billion years ago, "- says Robert Hazen, a geologist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. According to him, the new find scientists at least 500 million years older than the previous rekordmena. Moreover, it turns out that now found microorganisms lived on Earth when she was the age of 1 billion years and radically different from the world we see today.
New microorganisms have the energy production system, which is a cross between photosynthesis and decomposition of organic compounds . Scientists say that the remains discovered bacteria could already use solar ultraviolet energy reactions as a catalyst. Today, scientists are now debating when it emerged on the planet is the first form of life. Although chemtrails carbon life forms indicate that organic isotopes existed in the early period of the Earth, the exact date to today, no. Now researchers have found several stromatolites - rock formations created by prehistoric bacteria during chemical reactions.
The find was made in the Pilbara region (Australia). Judging by the radiocarbon age of stromatolites is 3.45 billion years. It should also be noted that other groups of scientists previously found in terrestrial rocks, traces of bacteria that lived on Earth 3.40 billion years ago. These bacteria are completely fed sulfur and does not depend on oxygen or photosynthesis. In addition, the territory of modern South Africa found traces of mycobacterial communities whose age is close to 3 billion years. Speaking about the Australian discovery, scientists say, that for a random everyman stromatolites - is ordinary stones with a wavy structure, but they are pointers to the oldest communities of bacteria.
According to them, in some Australian coastal regions stromatolites have been destroyed, but in the other yet. According to scientists, the first organic forms on Earth were a homogeneous huge colonies of microorganisms occupying hundreds of kilometers in shallow standing water. These colonies were combined system energy at the expense of sulfur and hydrogen through, but because as a byproduct they can devote hydrogen sulfide, which gave it a very unpleasant smell colonies with almost complete absence of oxygen. Note that scientists believe the theoretical existence of another more primitive bacteria on Earth that could exist even to the level of 3.45 billion years ago.
Such theoretical bacteria they call hemolitotrofov who could not form colonies, and their power scheme was even more exotic - they are fed through redox reactions. These bacteria had to absorb iron or sulfur from the rocks and using third-party catalysts oxidize these elements, eating released during the reaction energy.
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