科研之友
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摘要
The Pilbara Craton in Western Australia contains the best-preserved and most complete record of Archean rocks in the world. As such, they are some of the most studied rocks in the world; paleontologists, isotopic geochemists, geologists and geobiologists have all investigated these rocks for clues about the early biosphere and atmosphere. Here we show using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy that the carbonaceous material found in the Apex chert, and potentially in other associated units, was formed by multiple processes such as abiotic catalytic synthesis and/or biological synthesis. We use these data as well as the geological history of the craton to demonstrate that when the rocks of the Pilbara Craton experienced a high degree of post-depositional hydrothermal alteration, carbonaceous material could have been remobilized and redeposited. As the carbonaceous material within the Apex chert samples was formed over nearly a billion years, bulk chemistry, even at the micron level, will be unable to unambiguously delineate the presence of life in these ancient rocks, although nanoscale observations may provide a way forward in the search for ancient life.
- 出版日期2014-1
