An international group of scientists found the most ancient at the moment fossils of multicellular organisms.
The age of the remains, belonging to the mushrooms, is 2.4 billion years.
As reported Phys.org the fossils were found at a depth of 800 meters underground in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. Scientists studied the traces of bubbles of hot gas in the volcanic rocks and found in them the threads of mycelium — the vegetative body of the fungus. These organisms existed at about the same time the oxygen catastrophe — global change in the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere, which introduces available oxygen.
Mushrooms lived under the sea floor in the cracks of volcanic rocks. This ecosystem refers to the deep biosphere (deep biosphere) which have not been sufficiently studied. Previously found similar bubble formation age only 50 million years, but a new study has shown that such habitat existed in a time when fungi were considered to not yet exist.
According to scientists, the fungi coexist with bacteria using chemically stored energy the last for your metabolism. Under these conditions, the oxygen, which at that time was in short supply, they were not needed.
“The discovery “challenges the current ideas about when and where evolved eukaryotes,” explained Professor at the University of Rhodes in Grahamstown Nicola McLaughlin.
As reported by “Phrase”, in October 2010 in brown coal mine in the rainforest in the Indian state of Gujarat was found a scattering of amber weighing 150 kilograms, which was discovered more than 700 species previously unknown to science insects.
In September 2015 in amber 20 million years scientists have discovered a likely ancestor of microorganisms, which mankind owes one of the most deadly epidemics in history — “black death” of the fourteenth century.
In July 2016 on the coast of the Baltic sea was found a piece of amber walled insects. Estimated age of insects about 50 million years.
September 1, 2016, a group of scientists under the leadership of Allen Nutman from the University of Wollongong in Australia have found the oldest fossils known to date. They were the remains of microbes from the isua formation — the oldest rocks located in Greenland.
In October of the same year, Russian scientists reported the discovery of a subglacial lake Vostok in Antarctica unknown unique bacteria.
March 1, 2017, an international team of paleobiologii have discovered the oldest fossilized fragments of life on Earth. Traces of bacteria that lived on the planet about 3770-4280 million years ago near hydrothermal vents found in Nuvvuagittuq rocks — the oldest rocks on the planet.
March 2, 2017 there is information about what scientists have discovered traces of ancient microbes, whose age is about 4.28 billion years, which gives reason to conclude that the age of the Earth is 4.54 billion years old.
On April 24 it became known that Czech scientists have synthesized all of the nucleotide bases of RNA inside the experimental setup, in which was simulated the conditions on Earth several billion years ago. The study results are a proof of the origin of life from inorganic substances.
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