890-million-year-old fossils may be oldest sign of animal life on Earth

essentialsaltes

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A geologist may have uncovered the oldest sign of animal life on Earth: sponge fossils that potentially date back 890 million years. That’s some 350 million years earlier than the oldest undisputed findings of animal fossils.

Elizabeth Turner, a professor at Laurentian University in Ontario, chanced upon the fossilized structures in rock formations while doing field work as a graduate student in the country’s remote northwest more than two decades ago.

Examined under a microscope, the tiny sections of rock Turner uncovered contain a meshwork of three-dimensional structures — branching out in a distinctive way and rejoining — that closely resembles modern sponge skeletons.

Nature article
 

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A geologist may have uncovered the oldest sign of animal life on Earth: sponge fossils that potentially date back 890 million years. That’s some 350 million years earlier than the oldest undisputed findings of animal fossils.

Elizabeth Turner, a professor at Laurentian University in Ontario, chanced upon the fossilized structures in rock formations while doing field work as a graduate student in the country’s remote northwest more than two decades ago.

Examined under a microscope, the tiny sections of rock Turner uncovered contain a meshwork of three-dimensional structures — branching out in a distinctive way and rejoining — that closely resembles modern sponge skeletons.

Nature article

That's like what, Day 2 of creation? Day 3?
 
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C073SLAW

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Benjamin413

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This is seriously one of the main reasons I believe in a God. How did life emerge so quickly without there being another presence? Amazing find; crazy how fossils can still be intact nearly a billion years later.

same here. Not saying that I believe in “the Big Bang” but it’s amazing how life was created, almost completely destroyed & created again (pre flood).
 
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Subduction Zone

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same here. Not saying that I believe in “the Big Bang” but it’s amazing how life was created, almost completely destroyed & created again (pre flood).
There was no flood. You might want to study some geology, physics, chemistry, biology, archaeology . . .
 
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iluvatar5150

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There was no flood. You might want to study some geology, physics, chemistry, biology, archaeology . . .

Correction: There have been many floods, none of which were The Big One.
 
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Subduction Zone

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This is seriously one of the main reasons I believe in a God. How did life emerge so quickly without there being another presence? Amazing find; crazy how fossils can still be intact nearly a billion years later.
Quickly? It took single celled life upwards of 700 million years after the Earth formed to arise. Add another billion years for animal life. That does not sound excessively quickly to me.
 
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This is seriously one of the main reasons I believe in a God. How did life emerge so quickly without there being another presence? Amazing find; crazy how fossils can still be intact nearly a billion years later.

890 million years ago is Late Proterozoic, about 3650 million years after the Earth was formed.
 
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Blade

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A geologist may have uncovered the oldest sign of animal life on Earth: sponge fossils that potentially date back 890 million years. That’s some 350 million years earlier than the oldest undisputed findings of animal fossils.

Elizabeth Turner, a professor at Laurentian University in Ontario, chanced upon the fossilized structures in rock formations while doing field work as a graduate student in the country’s remote northwest more than two decades ago.

Examined under a microscope, the tiny sections of rock Turner uncovered contain a meshwork of three-dimensional structures — branching out in a distinctive way and rejoining — that closely resembles modern sponge skeletons.

Nature article


Lol.. well a believer in the one true God when I was young there lived behind us 7th Day Adv. My dad LOVED to go over and show them the 6million year old rock pig skull. Some 7th Day believe the earth is just 6k years old.

I laughed because.. this beat what my dad had.
 
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RDKirk

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"Impressive" is kind of a matter of perspective. Four thousand years ago, when it took a lifetime to build a monument, the idea of the world being created in a week was impressive.

These days, I'm impressed by a being that can take billions of years to do it.

I'm really impressed by how God lined up that nearly impossible billiard shot that punched another planet into the earth so perfectly that their cores merged. Without that trick shot, life on earth would still be a bunch of invertebrates.
 
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sjastro

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A geologist may have uncovered the oldest sign of animal life on Earth: sponge fossils that potentially date back 890 million years. That’s some 350 million years earlier than the oldest undisputed findings of animal fossils.

Elizabeth Turner, a professor at Laurentian University in Ontario, chanced upon the fossilized structures in rock formations while doing field work as a graduate student in the country’s remote northwest more than two decades ago.

Examined under a microscope, the tiny sections of rock Turner uncovered contain a meshwork of three-dimensional structures — branching out in a distinctive way and rejoining — that closely resembles modern sponge skeletons.

Nature article
Learnt something new.
I never heard of Rhenium-Osmium dating until now.
 
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Learnt something new.
I never heard of Rhenium-Osmium dating until now.
I remember Rhenium because it is a rare radioactive element where one can significantly lower its half life. If one manages to strip the atom of all of its electrons (something that you would not find on the Earth, and probably not even at the center of the Sun) its half life drops by over ten orders of magnitude:

Rhenium–osmium dating - Wikipedia
 
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Job 33:6

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A geologist may have uncovered the oldest sign of animal life on Earth: sponge fossils that potentially date back 890 million years. That’s some 350 million years earlier than the oldest undisputed findings of animal fossils.

Elizabeth Turner, a professor at Laurentian University in Ontario, chanced upon the fossilized structures in rock formations while doing field work as a graduate student in the country’s remote northwest more than two decades ago.

Examined under a microscope, the tiny sections of rock Turner uncovered contain a meshwork of three-dimensional structures — branching out in a distinctive way and rejoining — that closely resembles modern sponge skeletons.

Nature article

I find myself continually disappointed by modern day rockhounds and geologists who suggest that there are no Precambrian animal fossils.

If people would just look a little harder, who knows what we might find.
 
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Ophiolite

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I find myself continually disappointed by modern day rockhounds and geologists who suggest that there are no Precambrian animal fossils.

If people would just look a little harder, who knows what we might find.
I cannot imagine any modern day geologist who doubts the existence of Precambrian animal fossils. If by rockhounds you mean amateur geologists, I could certainly I accept that. Amateur status covers a very wide spectrum, from "superior to many professionals" down to "grossly incompetent and ignorant". However, for a practicing, or at least graduate geologist, how could they deny it. Does Ediacaran mean nothing to them.
I never heard of Rhenium-Osmium dating until now.
It has been important in interpreting the presence of different reservoirs within the mantle and IIRC is used extensively in dating meteorites.
 
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Job 33:6

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I cannot imagine any modern day geologist who doubts the existence of Precambrian animal fossils. If by rockhounds you mean amateur geologists, I could certainly I accept that. Amateur status covers a very wide spectrum, from "superior to many professionals" down to "grossly incompetent and ignorant". However, for a practicing, or at least graduate geologist, how could they deny it. Does Ediacaran mean nothing to them.
It has been important in interpreting the presence of different reservoirs within the mantle and IIRC is used extensively in dating meteorites.

You've described my frustration. It's not denial but rather I think it's just something that some still have yet to catch on to.

The precambrian fossils we have found, outside of the ediacaran at least, so far as I've seen have tended to be microscopic or soft bodied. I imagine there is plenty more yet to find.

Rather than looking at precambrian strata and throwing up our hands when we don't see any bone material, I think we should be taking a closer look, perhaps under microscopes or with more willingness to dig deeper and I think that's what the researchers in this article have done. They're going places that the rest of us should be going as well.
 
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driewerf

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It must have had a date stamp on it that said 890 million years old...
Are you willing to learn how paleontologists date fossils? Or just throw out a one liner?
IF you are willing to learn, you are invited to check out these links:

Dating Rocks and Fossils Using Geologic Methods | Learn Science at Scitable
How Do Scientists Date Fossils? | At the Smithsonian | Smithsonian Magazine

This last one is longer, more technical and directly aimed at the dating of human fossils. Enjoy:
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