This past month saw two groundbreaking studies probing into the earliest signs of both bacterial and plant life on earth. On March 1, a study was published in the journal Nature, identifying microfossils between 3.8 and 4.3 billion years in age that were found in an area known as the Nuvvuagittuq Supracrustal Belt (NSB), on the coast of Hudson Bay, in Canada’s Quebec province. The NSB is a segment of ocean floor containing some of the oldest volcanic and sedimentary rocks known to science. Within layers of quartz found at the site were tubes and tendrils of hematite, a form of iron oxide or rust, that … Continue reading Studies explore the oldest evidence of life on Earth