Life on Earth likely started 4.

1 billion years
ago—much earlier than scientists thought
October 19, 2015

Mark Harrison at UCLA. Credit: Reed Hutchinson/UCLA

UCLA geochemists have found evidence that life likely existed on Earth at least 4.1 billion years
ago—300 million years earlier than previous research suggested. The discovery indicates that
life may have begun shortly after the planet formed 4.54 billion years ago.

The research is published today in the online early edition of the journal Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences.

"Twenty years ago, this would have been heretical; finding evidence of life 3.8 billion years ago
was shocking," said Mark Harrison, co-author of the research and a professor of geochemistry at
UCLA.

"Life on Earth may have started almost instantaneously," added Harrison, a member of the
National Academy of Sciences. "With the right ingredients, life seems to form very quickly."

The new research suggests that life existed prior to the massive bombardment of the inner solar
system that formed the moon's large craters 3.9 billion years ago.

"If all life on Earth died during this bombardment, which some scientists have argued, then life
must have restarted quickly," said Patrick Boehnke, a co-author of the research and a graduate
student in Harrison's laboratory.

Scientists had long believed the Earth was dry and desolate during that time period. Harrison's
research—including a 2008 study in Nature he co-authored with Craig Manning, a professor of
geology and geochemistry at UCLA, and former UCLA graduate student Michelle Hopkins—is
proving otherwise.

"The early Earth certainly wasn't a hellish, dry, boiling planet; we see absolutely no evidence for
that," Harrison said. "The planet was probably much more like it is today than previously
thought."

The researchers, led by Elizabeth Bell—a postdoctoral scholar in Harrison's laboratory—studied

more than 10,000 zircons originally formed from molten rocks, or magmas, from Western
Australia. Zircons are heavy, durable minerals related to the synthetic cubic zirconium used for
imitation diamonds. They capture and preserve their immediate environment, meaning they can
serve as time capsules.
The scientists identified 656 zircons containing dark specks that could be revealing and closely
analyzed 79 of them with Raman spectroscopy, a technique that shows the molecular and
chemical structure of ancient microorganisms in three dimensions.

Bell and Boehnke, who have pioneered chemical and mineralogical tests to determine the
condition of ancient zircons, were searching for carbon, the key component for life.

One of the 79 zircons contained graphite—pure carbon—in two locations.

"The first time that the graphite ever got exposed in the last 4.1 billion years is when Beth Ann
and Patrick made the measurements this year," Harrison said.

How confident are they that their zircon represents 4.1 billion-year-old graphite?

"Very confident," Harrison said. "There is no better case of a primary inclusion in a mineral ever
documented, and nobody has offered a plausible alternative explanation for graphite of non-
biological origin into a zircon."

The graphite is older than the zircon containing it, the researchers said. They know the zircon is
4.1 billion years old, based on its ratio of uranium to lead; they don't know how much older the
graphite is.

The research suggests life in the universe could be abundant, Harrison said. On Earth, simple life
appears to have formed quickly, but it likely took many millions of years for very simple life to
evolve the ability to photosynthesize.

The carbon contained in the zircon has a characteristic signature—a specific ratio of carbon-12 to
carbon-13—that indicates the presence of photosynthetic life.

"We need to think differently about the early Earth," Bell said.

Reference: https://phys.org/news/2015-10-life-earth-billion-years-agomuch.html

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Earth’s Beginnings: The Origins of Life
By Eric McLamb, September 10, 2011

Earth is the only planet we know of that can support life. This is an amazing fact, considering
that it is made out of the same matter as other planets in our solar system, was formed at the
same time and through the same processes as every other planet, and gets its energy from the
sun.

To a universal traveler, Earth may seem to be a harmless little planet in the far reaches of one of
billions of spiral galaxies in the universe. It has an average size star of average brightness and is
joined by seven other planets — which support no known life forms — in its solar system. While
this may be fitting for a passage from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams,
in the grand scheme of the universe, it would be a fairly accurate description.

However, Earth is a planet teeming with vitality and is home to billions of plants and animals
that share a common evolutionary track. How and why did we get here? What processes had to
take place for this to happen? And where do we go from here? The fact is, no one has been able
to come close to knowing exactly what led to the origins of life, and we may never know. After 5
billion years of Earth’s formation and evolution, the evidence may have been lost. But scientists
have made significant progress in understanding what chemical processes that may have led to
the origins of life.

There are many theories, but most have the same general perspective of how things came to be
the way they are. Following is an account of life’s beginnings based on some of the leading
research and theories related to the subject, and of course, fossil records dating back as far as 3.5
billion years ago.

Earth’s Beginnings

The solar system was created from gas clouds and dust that remained from the Sun's formation
some 6-7 billion years ago. This material contained only about .2% of the solar system's mass
with the Sun holding the rest. (NASA graphic, by N. A. Cabrol)

Earth began to form over 4.6 billion years ago from the same cloud of gas (mostly hydrogen and
helium) and interstellar dust that formed our sun, the rest of the solar system and even our
galaxy. In fact, Earth is still forming and cooling from the galactic implosion that created the
other stars and planetary systems in our galaxy. This process began about 13.6 billion years ago
when the Milky Way Galaxy began to form.

As our solar system began to come together, the sun formed within a cloud of dust and gas that
continued to shrink in upon itself by its own gravitational forces. This caused it to undergo the
fusion process and give off light, heat and other radiation. During this process, the remaining
clouds of gas and dust that surrounded the sun began to form into smaller lumps called
planetesimals, which eventually formed into the planets we know today.
A large number of small objects, called planetesimals, began to form around the Sun early in the
formation of the solar system. These objects were the building blocks for the planets that exist
today. (NASA graphic, by N. A. Cabrol.)

The Earth went through a period of catastrophic and intense formation during its earliest
beginnings 4.6-4.4 billion years ago. By 3.8 to 4.1 billion years ago, Earth had become a planet
with an atmosphere (not like our atmosphere today) and an ocean. This period of Earth’s
formation is referred to as the pre-Cambrian Period. The pre-Cambrian is divided into three
parts: the Hadean, Archean and Proterozoic Periods.

Pre-Cambrian Period

The Earth formed under so much heat and pressure that it formed as a molten planet. For nearly
the first billion years of formation (4.5 to 3.8 billion years ago) — called the Hadean Period (or
hellish period) — Earth was bombarded continuously by the remnants of the dust and debris —
like asteroids, meteors and comets — until it formed into a solid sphere, pulled into orbit around
the sun and began to cool down.

Earth's early atmosphere most likely resembled that of Jupiter's atmosphere, which contains
hydrogen, helium, methane and ammonia, and is poisonous to humans. (Photo: NASA, from
Voyager 1)

As Earth began to take solid form, it had no free oxygen in its atmosphere. It was so hot that the
water droplets in its atmosphere could not settle to form surface water or ice. Its first atmosphere
was also so poisonous, comprised of helium and hydrogen, that nothing would have been able to
survive.

Earth’s second atmosphere was formed mostly from the out gassing of such volatile compounds
as water vapor, carbon monoxide, methane, ammonia, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen,
hydrochloric acid and sulfur produced by the constant volcanic eruptions that besieged the Earth.
It had no free oxygen.

About 4.1 billion years ago, the Earth’s surface — or crust — began to cool and stabilize,
creating the solid surface with its rocky terrain. Clouds formed as the Earth began to cool,
producing enormous volumes of rainwater that formed the oceans. For the next 1.3 billion years
(3.8 to 2.5 billion years ago), the Archean Period, first life began to appear and the world’s
landmasses began to form. Earth’s initial life forms were bacteria, which could survive in the
highly toxic atmosphere that existed during this time.

Toward the end of the Archean Period and at the beginning of the Proterozoic Period, about 2.5
billion years ago, oxygen-forming photosynthesis began to occur. The first fossils were a type of
blue-green algae that could photosynthesize.

Earth's atmosphere was first supplied by the gasses expelled from the massive volcanic eruptions
of the Hadean Era. These gases were so poisonous, and the world was so hot, that nothing could
survive. As the planet began to cool, its surface solidified as a rocky terrain, much like Mars'
surface (center photo) and the oceans began to form as the water vapor condensed into rain. First
life came from the oceans. Source: NASA, NWS

Some of the most exciting events in Earth’s history and life occurred during this time, which
spanned about two billion years until about 550 million years ago. The continents began to form
and stabilize, creating the supercontinent Rodinia about 1.2 billion years ago. Although Rodinia
is composed of some of the same land fragments as the more popular supercontinent, Pangea,
they are two different supercontinents. Pangea formed some 225 million years ago and would
evolve into the seven continents we know today.

Free oxygen began to build up around the middle of the Proterozoic Period — around 1.8 billion
years ago — and made way for the emergence of life as we know it today. This increased oxygen
created conditions that would not allow most of the existing life to survive and thus made way
for the more oxygen-dependent life forms.

By the end of the Proterozoic Period, Earth was well along in its evolutionary processes leading
to our current period, the Holocene Period,  or Anthropocene Period, also known as the Age of
Man. Thus, about 525 million years ago, the Cambrian Period began. During this period, life
“exploded,” developing almost all of the major groups of plants and animals in a relatively short
time. It ended with the massive extinction of most of the existing species about 500 million years
ago, making room for the future appearance and evolution of new plant and animal species.

About 498 million years later — 2.2 million years ago — the first modern human species
emerged.

(Compiled with the assistance of a broad range of science and research resources and review by
Dr. Jack C. Hall, Director of Environmental Studies, UNC Wilmington)

Did You Know?

The first modern human being was called homo habilis, the first of the homo genus. This species
developed stone tools for use in daily life. Homo habilis means “Handy Man.” He existed from
about 2.2 to 1.5 million years ago. There are earlier species related to modern man, called
hominids. The images show the skull shape and probable appearance of homo habilis.

The Pre-Cambrian Period — accounts for about 90 percent of Earth’s history. It lasted for about
four billion years until about 550 million years ago.

About 70 percent of the world’s land masses were created in the Archean Era, between 3.8 and
2.5 million years ago. Rodinia, widely recognized as the first supercontinent, formed during the
Proterozoic Era, about 2.5 billion years ago.

It is believed that the oldest human family member was discovered in Ethiopia and lived 4.4
million years ago. It was named “Ardi,” short for Ardipithecus ramidus

Reference: http://www.ecology.com/2011/09/10/earths-beginnings-origins-life/
Origins of life 3.9 billion years ago!
Author: Dr Rupert Perkins
Year: 2012

Introduction
Roughly 3.9 billion years before present (3.9 BBP), life on earth was very different,
in fact it hadn’t even started. The atmosphere was largely composed of harsh gases
(reducing gases) such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and methane. Yet in
these harsh conditions, life did evolve, and importantly that life evolved into
photosynthetic organisms which changed the planet. The production of oxygen by
the very first photosynthetic organisms (photoautotrophs) changed the atmosphere
and as little as 350 million years before present (MBP), sparked the evolutionary
explosion of the Cambrian Diversification. In turn, this lead to the evolution of us,
Homo sapiens.

One set of organisms that first started this process were the cyanobacteria, also
known as blue green algae. These are very primitive single celled organisms that
can be very common in marine and freshwater habitats. Some of the earliest records
of the existence of cyanobacteria come from Stromatolites, simply speaking, humps
and lumps of sand grains stuck together in discrete layers by the cyanobacteria
inside.

Today, almost 4 billion years later, stromatolites still exist, and the only example of
marine coastal Stromatolites in the world are in the Bahamas. Here they form in
harsh dynamic coastal areas where sand is suspended in the water column as a
source for the cyanobacteria to build the Stromatolite slowly over time. But here lies
a problem.

Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic and so need light as their energy source. But in
coastal areas dynamic enough to supply the sand to build the Stromatolite, the
cyanobacteria get buried frequently, often for months, possibly years at are time.
How can a light-dependent organism adapt to cope with this harsh regime of being
buried at sea? We investigated this as part of the Miami University research
programme Research Initiative on Bahamian Stromatolites, using a remote sensing
method called chlorophyll fluorescence. This method uses light energy re-emitted by
photosynthetic organisms to measure their activity. Using this, we measured
cyanobacteria in buried Stromatolites to find out how they coped with being buried.

Findings
Coping with burial at sea
Basically the cyanobacteria simply shut down their photosynthesis when they are
buried. Stromatolite samples buried artificially under a sand and sea-water mixture
showed a gradual decline in photosynthesis, in sharp contrast to samples
maintained in site water and kept in darkness. So it wasn’t just the darkness of burial
that caused this decline. The decline of photosynthetic activity of buried samples
correlated with the concomitant decrease in oxygen potential. When the samples
were unburied, they only switched on their photosynthesis when they were exposed
to low light. When the low light was temporarily switched off, the cyanobacteria
started to shut down again.
Note the blue-green layer just below the surface which is the layer of cyanobacteria
in amongst the sand grains which they have stuck together with sticky glue-like
polymers they secrete.

Waking up the “dead”

The next thing to do was to investigate naturally buried stromatolites by diving down
and collecting some samples.

Stromatolite samples that had been buried for over a week under sand in the sea by
natural processes were quickly cut out and returned to the lab on the research ship,
The Walton Smith, to see if we could reactivate their photosynthesis. As they shut
down when we buried them due to a lack of oxygen and light, we tried combinations
of these two factors to see if we could “wake them up”.

We quickly re-buried the samples but had a probe in place to measure their
photosynthesis activity. When they were buried, photosynthesis was quickly shut
down as we’d seen before. In fact it took less than 60 minutes to completely shut
down the cyanobacteria and they stayed like this for a further hour. Then we used
the probe to supply a low level of light, but nothing happened, the cyanobacteria
stayed switched off. However once the sample was unburied and remained in low
light, photosynthesis immediately increased, showing signs of stabilizing after a
further 2 hours. Then we tried using samples that had been buried for a month of
natural burial at sea. These samples were returned to the laboratory and re-buried
with the probe .and a small oxygen line in place. There was no initial photosynthetic
reactivation between sampling and re-burial and the application of oxygen during
burial also had no effect on the cyanobacteria, which stayed switched off.

However, once we gave them oxygen and low light, even though they were still
buried, they started to “wake up” their photosynthesis. By a combination of
experiments with controls to compare the results we had shown that buried
cyanobacteria in stromatolites could be reactivated with a combination of oxygen
and low light.

Conclusions: Interplanetary travel?

•
The work has shown so far that the cyanobacteria that have built stromatolites on
the Earth for almost 3.9 billion years can survive being buried for long periods of
time, and that during this burial, a lack of oxygen and light triggers them to switch off
their photosynthesis. That’s important for two reasons.

Firstly it explains how they can cope with being buried and therefore why they are so
important in building stromatolites in harsh dynamic coastal systems.
Secondly it means that the cyanobacteria need oxygen to keep their photosynthesis
systems working. That’s important because we think of photosynthesis as simply
producing oxygen (that’s how they changed the Earth’s atmosphere 3.9 BBP), but in
fact they need oxygen as well.
•
The other important finding of the work so far is that the cyanobacteria can be
reactivated by a combination of low light and oxygen, even after long periods of
burial. That’s an important strategy to enable them to adapt to their harsh conditions.
But it also makes scientists wonder about more farfetched possibilities.

Just maybe then, cyanobacteria could survive in space where there is little light and
no oxygen, possibly buried in a meteorite or comet. Then if they crash landed on a
planet with oxygen, even only a small level in the planets atmospheres, and were
exposed to light, they could “wake up from the dead” and colonise the new planet.
Interplanetary travel by small single celled cyanobacteria!
•
Coming back down to earth, the findings do tell us the importance of cyanobacteria
in building stromatolites 3.9 BBP to the present day, which in turn helps us
understand the very origins of life on Earth.

References:
Kromkamp JC, Perkins RG, Dijkman N, Consalvey M, Andres M, Reid RP (2007).
Resistance to burial of cyanobacteria
in stromatolites.
Aquat Microb Ecol
48:123–130.

Perkins RG, Kromkamp J, Reid RP (2007) How do stromatolite photosynthetic

communities tolerate natural sand burial
events? The roles of light and oxygen in photochemical reactivation.
Mar Ecol Prog Ser
349: 23-32.

Reid RP, Visscher PT, Decho AW, Stolz J,. Bebout BM, Dupraz C, Macintyre LG,
Paerl HW, Pinckney JL, Prufert-Bebout L,
Steppe TF, DesMarais DJ (2000) The role of microbes in accretion, lamination and
early lithification of modern marine
stromatolites.
Nature
406:989-992.

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