Precambrian rocks were originally defined to predate the Cambrian Period and therefore all life, although the term Proterozoic was later coined from the Greek for “early life.” It is now known that Precambrian rocks contain evidence of the very beginnings of life on Earth (and thus the record of its evolution for more than 3.5 billion years), the explosion of life-forms without skeletons before the Cambrian, and even the development of sexual reproduction.
The earliest signs of life on Earth are in western Greenland where apatite (calcium phosphate) grains within a 3.85-billion-year-old meta-sedimentary rock have carbon isotope ratios that indicate an organic origin. The presence of organic hydrocarbon droplets in kerogenous sediments has been found in the 3.46-billion-year-old Warrawoona Group in the Pilbara craton of Western Australia. These are small amounts of Archean oil.
The first fossil evidence of terrestrial life is found in the early Archean sedimentary rocks of the greenstone-granite belts (metamorphosed oceanic crust and island arc complexes) of the Barberton craton in South Africa and in the Warrawoona Group, which are both about 3.5 billion years old. There are two types of these early, simple, biological structures: microfossils and stromatolites (sheetlike mats precipitated by communities of microorganisms).
The earliest signs of life on Earth are in western Greenland where apatite (calcium phosphate) grains within a 3.85-billion-year-old meta-sedimentary rock have carbon isotope ratios that indicate an organic origin. The presence of organic hydrocarbon droplets in kerogenous sediments has been found in the 3.46-billion-year-old Warrawoona Group in the Pilbara craton of Western Australia. These are small amounts of Archean oil.
The first fossil evidence of terrestrial life is found in the early Archean sedimentary rocks of the greenstone-granite belts (metamorphosed oceanic crust and island arc complexes) of the Barberton craton in South Africa and in the Warrawoona Group, which are both about 3.5 billion years old. There are two types of these early, simple, biological structures: microfossils and stromatolites (sheetlike mats precipitated by communities of microorganisms).
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