Haematite filaments are reported from Nuvvuagittuq vent precipitates

Assembled from 12 blocks · 1 evidence · 4 related

1. Story
2. Dodd and colleagues reported micrometre-scale haematite tubes and filaments in jasper from the Nuvvuagittuq belt in Quebec, interpreted as the mineralised remains of iron-oxidising bacteria living at a seafloor hydrothermal vent, in rocks at least about 3,770 million years old and possibly as old as about 4,280 million years. Taken at face value this is the oldest claimed evidence for life anywhere, and it is also the most heavily qualified: the biogenicity of the filaments and the age of the host rocks are separately disputed, and the setting — a hydrothermal system — is exactly the environment in which abiotic mineral filaments are known to grow.
3. Knowledge
4. Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt, Nunavik
5. Haematite filaments are reported from Nuvvuagittuq vent precipitates
6. Connections
7. Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt, Nunavik
8. The origin of life
9. The origin of life
10. Haematite filaments are reported from Nuvvuagittuq vent precipitates
11. Evidence
12. Supports the report of haematite filaments in Nuvvuagittuq jasper and the at-least-3.77 Ga and possibly 4.28 Ga age range of the host rocks. Both the biogenicity and the age are disputed in the subsequent literature, which is not cited here. V55 verification basis: this session had no network access to any source — WebFetch was egress-blocked and the WebSearch budget was exhausted — so the cited work was not retrieved and its pagination was not re-checked. Volume and page range are quoted from standing knowledge and were not re-checked.