According to a news release from the Carnegie Institution, proof of 3.5 billion-year-old bacterial ecosystems has been discovered in Australia.

Recreating the emergence of life during the period of Earth’s history when it first developed is difficult. The planet’s oldest sedimentary rocks are not only rare, but also nearly always changed by hydrothermal and tectonic activity. New research showed the well-preserved leftovers of an intricate ecosystem in an almost 3.5 billion-year-old sedimentary rock sequence in Australia.

The Pilbara district of Western Australia makes up one of the most well-known geological regions that help scientists understand more about the early development of life. Mound-like deposits produced by ancient photosynthetic bacteria, known as stromatolites, and microfossils of bacteria have been detailed by scientists in depth. However, a spectacle known as microbially induced sedimentary structures (MISS) had not previously been spotted in this region. These structures are created from mats of microbial material, much like mats observed today on stagnant waters.

The researchers detailed differing MISS preserved in the region’s Dresser Formation. Complex chemical analyses indicate a biological origin of the material.

The Dresser MISS fossils look in form and preservation like the MISS from several other younger rock samples, like a 2.9 billion-year-old ecosystem that the Carnegie Institution’s Nora Noffke and her team discovered in South Africa.

“This work extends the geological record of MISS by almost 300 million years,” noted Noffke in a statement. “Complex mat-forming microbial communities likely existed almost 3.5 billion years ago.”

The researchers suggest that the sedimentary structures emerged from the interactions of bacterial films with shoreline sediments from the region.

“The structures give a very clear signal on what the ancient conditions were, and what the bacteria composing the biofilms were able to do,” Noffke posited.

According to the news release, the Mars rovers are on the hunt for MISS.

The study’s findings are described in greater detail in the journal Astrobiology.

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