The rocks were collected on the west Australian coast in 1982. They contained fossils of microorganisms 3.465 billion years old. Techniques revealing the chemistry which supported the microorganisms were developed years later. In late 2017, William Schopf from UCLA and colleagues from the University of Wisconsin revealed details of how the specimens lived. Two of the species appear to have performed a primitive form of photosynthesis, another apparently produced methane gas, and two others appear to have consumed methane and used it to build their cell walls.
Office of Strategic Communication