Bubbles may have sheltered Earth’s early life
Signs of microbes found in 3.2-billion-year-old sandstone
By Meghan Rosen
For Earth’s early inhabitants, living in a bubble was a good thing.
Pockets of gas trapped along ancient shorelines gave microbes a cozy place to call home about 3.2 billion years ago, scientists suggest December 4 in Geology. Such a snug hideout could have shielded microbes from ultraviolet radiation not only on Earth, but perhaps on Mars as well.
The new work is “exciting and very plausible,” says geologist Frances Westall of the French National Center for Scientific Research in Orléans. “It expands the known habitats for early life.”