A University of Manitoba researcher is one of an international team of geologists who have announced the discovery of what may be evidence of the oldest complex life formed on Earth. They found fossilized microorganisms that were deposited in ancient marine sediment about 3.2 billion years ago.

“These are the oldest large microfossils with significant implications for the evolution of life,” says Andrey Bekker, geological sciences.

Bekker, along with colleagues Emmanuelle Javaux of the University of Liège and Craig Marshall of the University of Kansas, published their findings in this week’s issue of the journal Nature.

The researchers examined shale samples from drill cores 600 metres below the surface in South Africa. They found unmistakeable fossilized microorganisms that had been well-preserved. This effectively pushes back the earliest evidence of complex life that lived on Earth to at least 3.2 billion years, which means that life on Earth began to form within less than one and a half billion years after planetary formation.

Previously, the oldest reliable evidence of advanced life found were fossilized bacteria in rock less than two billion years old.

He notes: “This discovery provides evidence that life was rather complex more than three billion years ago.”

For more information, please contact Andrey Bekker, geological sciences, at: 204-474-7343