The Akilia carbon claim
A speck of graphite on a Greenland island, argued over for a quarter of a century.
- When
- Known to
- ± 50 million years
- Era
- Eoarchean, Archean
Graphite in apatite from Akilia island was reported in 1996 as isotopic evidence of life older than 3.85 billion years — for a time the oldest claim anywhere. Both the rock's age and whether the host is even a sediment have been contested ever since, and the carbon may have entered much later. It is a landmark in the field mainly for showing how hard the question is at this depth in time.