Loch Fossils Show Life Harnessed Sun and Sex Early on

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Loch Fossils Show Life Harnessed Sun and Sex Early on

ScienceDaily (Apr. 14, 2011) â€" Remote lochs along the west coast of Scotland are turning up new evidence about the origins of life on land.

A team of scientists from the University of Sheffield, the University of Oxford and Boston College, who are exploring rocks around Loch Torridon, have discovered the remarkably preserved remains of organisms that once lived on the bottom of ancient lake beds as long as a billion (1,000 million) years ago.

These fossils illuminate a key moment in the history of evolution when life made the leap from tiny, simple bacterial (prokaryote) cells towards larger, more complex (eukaryotic) cells which would make photosynthesis and sexual reproduction possible. The findings are reported in the journal Nature...

These unique fossils add a very old piece of the jigsaw of life on Earth.