(Image Credit: Nora Noffke)
Scientists have discovered what they believe is the oldest fossil anywhere on Earth.
The fossil is the remains of what was once purple and green slimy bunch of single cell microbes, dating back an incredible 3.5 billion years. The microbes, scientists suggest, are likely an ancestor of humans and would have had a less than pleasant stench of rotten eggs.
The fossil was found in Western Australia by Nora Noffke from Old Dominion University in the U.S. The tiny little fossilized mat is approximately 300 million years older than any other fossil found on Earth today.said study co-author Robert Hazen, a minerologist at the Carnegie Institution of Science in Washington.
He states that life on the mat likely produced sulphur by converting the suns energy, and left a bad smell in its wake. He also added that if you were to walk the beaches of Australia 3.5 billion years ago, you would see a ‘slimy mass of purple or brown fibres emitting the sulphuric stench but living very happily’.
Check out the entire article here at The Daily Mail.
