Life moves onto land
Microbes colonise hot springs 3.5 billion years ago — a billion years earlier than anyone expected.
- When
- Known to
- ± 40 million years
- Era
- Paleoarchean, Archean
Deposits in the Dresser Formation preserve geyserite and other textures that only form in terrestrial hot springs, together with stromatolites and bubble structures made by microbial films. Life was thought to have stayed in the sea until far later. The finding also matters for Mars: comparable hot-spring deposits exist there, and this shows such settings can both host life and preserve the evidence.