Scientists' discovery suggests life on Earth may have appeared 4.1 bln years ago

Not sure if this was posted already, but if not, here you go... This is a pretty interesting discovery.

"Life on Earth may have started almost instantaneously. "With the right ingredients, life seems to form very quickly."
-Mark Harrison, UCLA

Geochemists have discovered an ancient crystal that suggests life could have started 4.1 billion years ago, almost immediately after the earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago. A whopping 300-400 million years sooner than previously thought.

The new research suggests that life existed prior to the massive bombardment of the inner solar system that formed the moon's large craters 3.9 billion years ago.

"If all life on Earth died during this bombardment, which some scientists have argued, then life must have restarted quickly," said Patrick Boehnke, a co-author of the research and a graduate student in Harrison's laboratory.

www.eurekalert.org...

Scientists from Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles said they recently collected some 10,000 multibillion year-old zircons in Jack Hills, Australia, including one believed to contain a carbon deposit that is 4.1 billion years old, give or take 10 million years.

www.reuters.com...
phys.org...

Here's the abstract to the paper
www.pnas.org...

The research suggests life in the universe could be abundant, Harrison said. On Earth, simple life appears to have formed quickly, but it likely took many millions of years for very simple life to evolve the ability to photosynthesize.

Read more at: phys.org...

Cool stuff

a reply to: PhotonEffect

Just think what could have happened in one billion years before the bombardment.
Life could have evolved to the limits we are at today 5,000 times over during this period.
Look how far we've come this time around in just the past 200,000 years.

a reply to: NowWhat

Look how close we are to ending it all, it's human nature right ?

Just think how fast the first super-massive stars formed through fusion and created elements like hydrogen, helium, oxygen, carbon, sulphur, nitrogen and iron, then released by supernova explosions. That would have created carbon compounds like coal, crystals like diamonds and ice, even water, all the different gases like carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), hydrocarbons like ethane, benzene rings, hydroxl groups (OH). With all of those, there would have been the ingredients to create amino acids. These would have self organized into a goo of random DNA strands. Then either it would be frozen in space or disintegrated through heat.

There was a logarithmic chart of the rate of DNA mutations and increase in complexity. Tracing back that graph, and it would appear that for some branches of species, life existing before the Earth formed.

a reply to: threeeyesopen

were not stupid enough to nuke ourselves to death

people may talk but in reality as a collective we are not that insane.

yes we did/do #ed up things but hey it wasn't mass suicide

even if that did happen the human race will prosper. humans are creative little #heads so im confident

a reply to: PhotonEffect

There's an old saying,

"Where there's a will, there's a way."

Well, it seems when it comes to life, a little rearranging is in order.

"Where there's a way, there's a will."

It may just be that life blossoms stubbornly, relentlessly at every opportunity.

If life is abundant where possible, does that make us truly any more special than a rock, a spec of dust, a star, a planet? Is life by virtue of consciousness worth more? At some point the inanimate became anim- argh I'm thinking out loud.

Excuse me while I go drink tea and ponder meaninglessly.

originally posted by: NowWhat
Just think what could have happened in one billion years before the bombardment.
Life could have evolved to the limits we are at today 5,000 times over during this period.
Look how far we've come this time around in just the past 200,000 years.

Well, the earth formed near 4.5 billion years ago and this study is referencing 4.1, so it's only 400 million years between the formation of earth and the first life. I very much doubt that life could have evolved to where we are today in that short of a time, in that given environment. Most life on the planet today could not survive those type of conditions and it took near 1 billion years for single cells to become multi-cellular organisms. I'd agree with you if not for the bombardment period. It would take extreme type of lifeforms to survive that period and humans simply are not built for that. A billion years with the earth's current conditions, I'd agree that it could happen.

"Life on Earth may have started almost instantaneously. With the right ingredients, life seems to form very quickly."
-Mark Harrison, UCLA

Yup. Now take the superfluous 'billions of years' out of the theory.

a reply to: NowWhat

I don't know what you are talking about. If the OP is true, humans are at the tail end of 4.1 billion years of evolution. Meaning that we couldn't get to where we are now without all those evolutionary changes stacking up over time.

a reply to: PhotonEffect

Without any suggestion of creation or ID.
Numbers like these in terms of years when used
prove some scientists are out of their friggen minds.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I don't know what you are talking about. If the OP is true, humans are at the tail end of 4.1 billion years of evolution. Meaning that we couldn't get to where we are now without all those evolutionary changes stacking up over time.

How would abiogenesis and at least one pleistocene
ELE even factor in to this number? The numbers at some
point just being numbers begin to bogle.

originally posted by: cooperton
"Life on Earth may have started almost instantaneously. With the right ingredients, life seems to form very quickly."
-Mark Harrison, UCLA

Yup. Now take the superfluous 'billions of years' out of the theory.

You really still equate evolution to abiogenesis? Some people just shouldn't comment on things they have no clue about. Do us all a favor and stick to posting fake Photoshopped dinosaur pictures and claim they are dragons.

originally posted by: randyvs
Without any suggestion of creation or ID.
Numbers like these in terms of years when used
prove some scientists are out of their friggen minds.

How so? Because they are really big? No really. Please explain what you mean here.

a reply to: randyvs

Why would I know? This study was just released. I can't possibly know all the implications it means for other hypotheses or theories. If you think these numbers are mind boggling, don't look up numbers in relation to sizes of objects in the universe...

originally posted by: Barcs

You really still equate evolution to abiogenesis? Some people just shouldn't comment on things they have no clue about. Do us all a favor and stick to posting fake Photoshopped dinosaur pictures and claim they are dragons.

My statement had nothing to do with evolution. Not all references to the culmination of man are related to evolution, escape your tunnel vision and you could begin to see the bigger picture.

originally posted by: Barcs

Well, the earth formed near 4.5 billion years ago and this study is referencing 4.1, so it's only 400 million years between the formation of earth and the first life. I very much doubt that life could have evolved to where we are today in that short of a time, in that given environment. Most life on the planet today could not survive those type of conditions and it took near 1 billion years for single cells to become multi-cellular organisms. I'd agree with you if not for the bombardment period. It would take extreme type of lifeforms to survive that period and humans simply are not built for that. A billion years with the earth's current conditions, I'd agree that it could happen.

Vague sophistry.

I will request you stop spewing out cookie-cutter science that every 5th grader in the Western world has had indoctrinated into their head. We already have plenty of parrots that can do that just fine.

Please do not misunderstand me....

I do believe there are natural processes that are not being considered because they are unknown, or not fully understood, in the estimate of the age of this planet.

I think it is much older.

originally posted by: NowWhat
Life could have evolved to the limits we are at today 5,000 times over during this period.

Why? Homo Sapiens is a bit of an evolutionary fluke.

a reply to: NowWhat

"Evolved to the limits"?

This is not how evolution works.

I am not certain it was Biogenisis, I think it was panspermia, or a combination of the two, that is of course if we are not refugees from a mars disaster, Humans are akin to photons, in that they behave like animals and intelligence, like wave and particle motion.

a reply to: PhotonEffect

S&F'd. I'd seen this article floating around the other day on news sites, but it was your post that made me take a decent look at it. Remarkable. I'd expect this makes panspermia seem a lot more likely?