SYDNEY — Life on earth is even older than we thought, according to Australian scientists who unveiled fossils dating back a staggering 3.7-billion years.The tiny structures — called stromatolites — were found along the edge of Greenland’s ice cap after the melting of a snow patch. They are 220-million years older than the previous record-holders.They proved that life emerged fairly shortly — in geological terms — after the earth was formed about 4.5-billion years ago, lead researcher Allen Nutman of the University of Wollongong said on Thursday.And, he said, they offered hope that very basic life might at one point have existed on Mars."This discovery represents a new benchmark for the oldest preserved evidence of life on earth," said Prof Martin Julian van Kranendonk, a geology expert at the University of New South Wales and a co-author of the findings, which have been published in the journal Nature."The structures and geochemistry from the newly exposed outcrops in Greenland disp...
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