The oldest fossil known it would be that of a microbial formations found in Greenland have about 3,700 million years, as now described in a study published by Nature.
This new finding advances in 220 million years considered the first fossil evidence of the existence of life on Earth, dated 3,480 million years ago and found in the craton Pilbara, in northwest Australia.
An Australian team of experts, headed by Allen Nutman University of Wollongong discovered fossils of stromatolites type sedimentary -formaciones created by the growth of microorganisms-layers 1.4 centimeters high.
The discovery was kept in metamorphic rocks in the so-called Isua Greenstone Belt (southwest Greenland) that had previously been dated to an age of 3,700 million years, a time when the earth was bombarded by asteroids and was still undergoing training.
Fossils, which came to light due to the recent thaw in an area of perennial snow, it is believed that were deposited in a shallow marine environment, the study says.
Various tests, such as details of chemistry, sedimentary structures and the presence of minerals in the rocks, suggest that stromatolites were formed from living organisms.
These findings are consistent with studies on the genetic molecular clock that places the origin of life on Earth in more than 4,000 million years ago.
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