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Science 23 April 2004:
Vol. 304. no. 5670, pp. 578 - 581
DOI: 10.1126/science.1095858
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Reports

Early Life Recorded in Archean Pillow Lavas

Harald Furnes,1*{dagger} Neil R. Banerjee,1,2{dagger} Karlis Muehlenbachs,2 Hubert Staudigel,3 Maarten de Wit4

Pillow lava rims from the Mesoarchean Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa contain micrometer-scale mineralized tubes that provide evidence of submarine microbial activity during the early history of Earth. The tubes formed during microbial etching of glass along fractures, as seen in pillow lavas from recent oceanic crust. The margins of the tubes contain organic carbon, and many of the pillow rims exhibit isotopically light bulk-rock carbonate {delta}13C values, supporting their biogenic origin. Overlapping metamorphic and magmatic dates from the pillow lavas suggest that microbial life colonized these subaqueous volcanic rocks soon after their eruption almost 3.5 billion years ago.

1 Department of Earth Science, University of Bergen, Allegaten 41, 5007 Bergen, Norway.
2 Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E3, Canada.
3 Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, La Jolla, CA 92093–0225, USA.
4 Centre for Interactive Graphical Computing of Earth Systems, Geological Sciences, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701, South Africa.



{dagger} These authors contributed equally to this work.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: Harald.Furnes{at}geo.uib.no

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Ichnotaxonomy of microbial trace fossils in volcanic glass.
N. McLoughlin, H. Furnes, N.R. Banerjee, K. Muehlenbachs, and H. Staudigel (2009)
Journal of the Geological Society 166, 159-169
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U-Pb ages (3.8-2.7 Ga) and Nd isotope data from the newly identified Eoarchean Nuvvuagittuq supracrustal belt, Superior Craton, Canada.
J. David, L. Godin, R. Stevenson, J. O'Neil, and D. Francis (2009)
Geological Society of America Bulletin 121, 150-163
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Direct dating of Archean microbial ichnofossils.
N. R. Banerjee, A. Simonetti, H. Furnes, K. Muehlenbachs, H. Staudigel, L. Heaman, and M. J. Van Kranendonk (2007)
Geology 35, 487-490
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Implications of a 3.472-3.333 Gyr-old subaerial microbial mat from the Barberton greenstone belt, South Africa for the UV environmental conditions on the early Earth.
F. Westall, C. E.J de Ronde, G. Southam, N. Grassineau, M. Colas, C. Cockell, and H. Lammer (2006)
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A fresh look at the fossil evidence for early Archaean cellular life.
M. Brasier, N. McLoughlin, O. Green, and D. Wacey (2006)
Phil Trans R Soc B 361, 887-902
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