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Our ancestors in caves spent countless hours sharpening and smashing rocks together. Eventually, the right combination of stone, spark and sun-dried leaves came together to create flame, an invention that would quickly catapult our species into the tippy-top of the <keyword id="19912640" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="earth" source="keywords">Earth</keyword>’s food chain. What if we told you that a similar, albeit exponentially more massive, smashing of rocks billions of years ago could have set the stage for <keyword id="22593154" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="life-on-Earth" source="keywords">life on Earth</keyword>?<br /><br />According to a recent study,a <keyword id="21075363" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="meteorite" source="keywords">meteorite</keyword> the size of four Mount Everests slammed into our planet 3.26 billion years ago. To say this impact was colossal is an understatement. Scientists now believe that the event, dubbed the "<keyword id="23639569" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="S2-impact" source="keywords">S2 impact</keyword>," caused a massive chain reaction that may have helped shape life as we know it.<br /><br />When this meteorite hit, it likely triggered a tsunami so powerful it tore through shallow waters, dragging sediment and debris into the oceans. The researchers explained that the impact was so intense that the top layers of the ocean boiled off, and a thick blanket of dust darkened the skies, cutting off sunlight for photosynthesis.<br /><div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="114434659" title="Robinhood&amp;#39;s cofounder has joined the rapidly growing commercial space race, and wants to beam solar power from satellites to earth" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div>Now, this might sound like a doomsday scenario, but for the microscopic organisms living back then, it was an opportunity. According to Nadja Drabon, a geologist at Harvard who led the study, "We think of impact events as being disastrous for life. But what this study is highlighting is that these impacts would have had benefits to life, especially early on."<br /><h2>Life in the wake of destruction</h2>So how exactly did life survive — and even thrive — after such a <keyword id="23639574" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="cataclysmic-event" source="keywords">cataclysmic event</keyword>?<br /><br />The answer lies in two elements: <keyword id="23639572" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="iron-and-phosphorus" source="keywords">iron and phosphorus</keyword>. The giant tsunami stirred up iron from the depths of the ocean, while phosphorus was delivered to Earth by the meteorite and increased erosion. Both elements are essential for life, and in the aftermath of the S2 impact, bacteria that could metabolise iron likely had a field day.<br /><br />Drabon's team found evidence that bacteria quickly bounced back after the meteorite hit, and their populations surged. These iron-loving <keyword id="20361299" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="microorganisms" source="keywords">microorganisms</keyword> might have found their perfect environment in the chaotic post-impact world. "What this study is showing is that these impacts might have actually allowed life to flourish," Dragon explains.<br /><br />The clues to this ancient event are hidden in the <keyword id="23639570" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Barberton-Greenstone-Belt" source="keywords">Barberton Greenstone Belt</keyword> in South Africa. This region, one of the oldest geological formations on Earth, contains layers of rock that preserve evidence of past meteorite impacts, including the S2 event. By painstakingly examining these rocks, Drabon and her team have pieced together a picture of the world as it was billions of years ago.<br /><h2>Not a one time event</h2>Their research involves collecting rock samples just centimetres apart and analysing them for chemical signatures that hint at ancient tsunamis, changes in ocean chemistry, and the rise of <keyword id="23639573" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="early-bacterial-life" source="keywords">early bacterial life</keyword> — essentially solving a 3-billion-year-old mystery, one thin slice of rock at a time.<br /><div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="114397797" title="Trump aims for the stars as he links his campaign to Elon Musk&amp;#39;s success at SpaceX" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div>From this, the researchers also deciphered that this wasn't just a one-time event. The Barberton Greenstone Belt contains evidence of at least eight major meteorite impacts, suggesting that Earth was regularly bombarded by space rocks during its early years. Each impact may have played a role in shaping the course of life on our planet.<br /><br />Drabon and her team plan to continue exploring the Barberton region, hoping to uncover more details about these <keyword id="23639571" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ancient-impacts" source="keywords">ancient impacts</keyword> and how they influenced Earth's early ecosystems. The more we learn about these dramatic events, the clearer it becomes that, while destructive, they were also key drivers of change.<br /><br />The findings of this study have been published in the<em> Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</em> and can be accessed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2408721121">here</a>.<br />

A 3-billion-year-old meteorite might have sparked life on Earth, study asserts

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists have managed to extract  evidence from an ancient fossil of early life on Earth. </li><li>Rock in South Africa is thought to contain some of the oldest known fossils in the world.</li></ul><p>Earth may have been teeming with a complex ecosystem of microorganisms as far back as 3.4 billion years ago.</p><p>Scientists, led by the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/125309.html">University of Göttingen</a> in Germany, studied fossils taken from the Buck Reef Chert in the Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa.</p><p>The area is known for having well-preserved ancient sedimentary rocks close to its surface, which can provide a snapshot of our planet's history.</p><p>In some of these rocks, researchers found chemical signatures that provided an  insight into the biodiversity of ancient organisms, adding evidence to the early beginning of life on our planet.</p><p>"What I'm reading out of this is that early life was working very much similarly to life today," Frances Westall, an expert in ancient biology from the French National Centre for Scientific Research, who was not involved in the study, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2413292-traces-of-ancient-life-reveal-a-3-4-billion-year-old-ecosystem/">told New Scientist</a>.</p><div type="image" title="Three samples of fossils are shown side by side. The fossils are shown either in black and white or as seen under fluorescent light." height="1000" width="2000" msid="107057816" hostid="261" sizebytes="103048"></div><h2>Life on Earth more than 3 billion years ago</h2><p>Scientists think that life on Earth began around 4.3 billion years ago, but tracking down evidence dating back to that time is a difficult task.</p><p>Still, by drilling straight into ancient rock, scientists have found peculiar, carbon-rich layers in several cores taken from around the world.</p><p>These layers are widely thought to be fossilized life, frozen in rock billions of years ago.</p><p>The oldest accepted rock core containing fossilized life was found in Pilbara, Australia. This is thought to be more than 3.5 million years old.</p><p>Older carbon-rich layers have been uncovered, but because of their age, it's not possible to know for sure that these are fossils or another non-biological process.</p><p>So scientists have been racing to understand all they can from these ancient fossils. And what they've found is that Earth was already teaming with life more than three billion years ago.</p><p>"It's very difficult to see the trend, simply because of a lack of well-preserved rocks," says Westall.</p><p>"Personally, I think life emerged on Earth during the Hadean, probably about 4.2, 4.1 billion years [ago]," Westall said referring to a period of time that ended about four billion years ago.</p><h2>Microbes' metabolisms, billions of years after they died</h2><p>The samples from the Barberton Greenstone Belt are among the oldest known fossils of life — dating back to about 3.42 billion years ago.</p><div type="image" title="a map pinpoints the location where the rock cores were extracted" height="1062" width="1466" msid="107057818" hostid="261" sizebytes="49752"></div><p>Earlier analyses had looked at the shape of the fossilized microbes in the rock, suggesting these were varied and probably lived near water.</p><p>The new analysis, published in the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301926824000020#da005">peer-reviewed journal </a>Precambrian Research on January 12, pushed the analysis even further by looking at the chemicals that made up the microbes.</p><p>Their study showed that, as expected, there were a lot of "photoautotrophs" back then, meaning the bacteria were able to take sunlight and turn it into energy, much like some bacteria that exist today.</p><p>But they also found evidence that some microbes were likely already able to use up sulfate and make complex chemicals like methane and acetate.</p><p>This reinforces the idea that life was already very complex 3.4 billion years ago, capable of using up carbon in a variety of ways that we still see today, the scientists said in the study.</p><p>"These results highlight the existence of an advanced biological carbon cycle as early as 3.42 Ga ago," they said.</p>

Remnants of life in ancient rocks reveal Earth had a rich ecosystem 3.4 billion years ago

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A 3-billion-year-old meteorite might have sparked life on Earth, study asserts

Ankush Banerjee

Remnants of life in ancient rocks reveal Earth had a rich ecosystem 3.4 billion years ago

Marianne Guenot

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