Canadian rocks may hold oldest fossils of animals
WASHINGTON — A Canadian geologist may have found the earliest fossil record of animal life on Earth, according to a report published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Around a billion years ago, a region of northwest Canada now defined by steep mountains was a prehistoric marine environment, and the remains of ancient sponges may be preserved in mineral sediment there, the paper says.
Geologist Elizabeth Turner of Laurentian University found the rocks in a region of the Northwest Territories accessible only by helicopter, where she has been excavating since the 1980s. Thin sections of rock contain three-dimensional structures that resemble modern sponge skeletons.
“I believe these are ancient sponges — only this type of organism has this type of network of organic filaments,” said Joachim Reitner, a geobiologist and expert in sponges at Germany’s University of Goettingen, who was not involved in the research.
The dating of adjacent rock layers indicates the samples are about 890 million years old, which would make them about 350 million years older than the oldest undisputed sponge fossils previously found.
“What’s most stunning is the timing,” said Paco Cardenas, an expert on sponges at Sweden’s Uppsala University, who was not involved in the research. “To have discovered sponge fossils from close to 900 million years ago will greatly improve our understanding of early animal evolution.”
Scientists believe life on Earth emerged around 3.7 billion years ago. The earliest animals appeared much later, but exactly when is still debated.
Many scientists believe the first animal groups included soft sponges or sponge-like creatures that lacked muscles and nerves but had other features of simple animals, including cells with differentiated functions and sperm.
Until now, the oldest undisputed fossil sponges date to around 540 million years ago, an era called the Cambrian period.
But scientists using a line of reasoning called the molecular clock — which involved analyzing the rate of genetic mutations to backdate when two species probably diverged — say that available evidence points to sponges emerging much earlier, around a billion years ago.
No supporting physical evidence had yet been found — until now.
“This would be the first time that a sponge fossil has been found from before the Cambrian, and not only before, but way before — that’s what’s most exciting,” said Cardenas, adding that the research seems to confirm the molecular clock estimates.
Fossil evidence is scant before the Cambrian period, when animals first developed hard skeletons, exoskeletons and shells, which are more likely to be preserved.
The dating of 890 million years ago is significant because, if the sponge’s identification is confirmed, it shows that the first animals evolved before a time when oxygen in the atmosphere and ocean reached a level scientists once thought was necessary for animal life.