�㽶��Ƶ News - Boswell Wing

Billion-year-old lake deposit yields clues to Earth’s ancient biosphere

webfull — Wed, 18 Jul 2018 16:51:34 +0000

A sample of ancient oxygen, teased out of a 1.4 billion-year-old evaporative lake deposit in Ontario, provides fresh evidence of what the Earth’s atmosphere and biosphere were like during the interval leading up to the emergence of animal life.

Published: 18 July 2018

Isotopic memory of atmospheric persistence

webfull — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 15:16:55 +0000

Chemical analysis of some of the world’s oldest rocks, by an international team led by �㽶��Ƶ researchers, has provided the earliest record yet of Earth's atmosphere. The results show that the air 4 billion years ago was very similar to that more than a billion years later, when the atmosphere -- though it likely would have been lethal to oxygen-dependent humans -- supported a thriving microbial biosphere that ultimately gave rise to the diversity of life on Earth today.

Published: 14 January 2015

What the “fecal prints” of microbes can tell us about E

webfull — Tue, 23 Dec 2014 15:29:04 +0000

The distinctive “fecal prints” of microbes potentially provide a record of how Earth and life have co-evolved over the past 3.5 billion years as the planet’s temperature, oxygen levels, and greenhouse gases have changed. But, despite more than 60 years of study, it has proved difficult, until now, to “read” much of the information contained in this record. Research from �㽶��Ƶ and Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), sheds light on the mysterious digestive processes of microbes, opening the way towards a better understanding of how life and the planet have changed over time.

Published: 23 December 2014

Mining ancient ores for clues to early life

webfull — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 17:48:24 +0000

An analysis of sulfide ore deposits from one of the world’s richest base-metal mines confirms that oxygen levels were extremely low on Earth 2.7 billion years ago, but also shows that microbes were actively feeding on sulfate in the ocean and influencing seawater chemistry during that geological time period.

Published: 10 December 2012