[Rockhounds] "World's Oldest Fossils" (Stromatolites, Greenland) Might Actually Be Simple Rocks

[Paul]

Tim wrote,

 > That's almost a relief. I was intrigued reading the initial
 > articles but was extremely skeptical.
 >
 >Looks like the original authors are sticking to their guns.

That is expected. Because of the mangled condition of most
Paleoarchean rocks and limited preservation potential,
the biotic nature of many such alleged fossils can be ambiguous
and equivocal at best . This makes them controversial by nature.

The well-accepted stromatolites in Australia are
3.5 billion years old. Thus, the 200 million years that the Greenland
"stromatolites" would extend the record of life is not that significant
in terms of theories about how easy it is for life to develop.
Whether the Greenland stromatolites are fossils or not does
not change ideas about the origin of life much.

Yours,

Paul H.