Hard Science We May Have Just Uncovered the Earliest Direct Evidence of Life on Earth 17 10030 Wikimedia Commons Life on Earth At approximately 3.5 billion-year-old, the oldest fossils on Earth have been uncovered in Western Australia. The microscopic fossils are the earliest direct evidence of life on Earth and — thanks to further analysis and study by researchers at UCLA and the University of Wisconsin-Madison —could deepen our understanding of the origins of life. The study was published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). In the study, a team of researchers led by J. William Schopf, professor of paleobiology at UCLA, and John W. Valley, professor of geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, described 11 microbial fossil specimens stemming from five separate taxa. They connected the fossil’s morphologies to the chemical signatures we understand to be the basis for life. Some of the s...
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