[Rockhounds] 1.6-billion-year-old steroids may be traces of earliest complex life.

[Paul]

1.6-billion-year-old steroids may be traces of earliest complex life.
Primitive steroids found in ancient Australian rocks may have been
made by the earliest complex cells before they evolved into animals,
plants, fungi and algae By Alice Klein, New Scientist, June 7, 2023
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2377272-1-6-billion-year-old-steroids-may-be-traces-of-earliest-complex-life/

The paywalled paper is::

Brocks, J.J., Nettersheim, B.J., Adam, P. et al., 2003. Lost world of
complex life and the late rise of the eukaryotic crown. Nature
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06170-w

Barney Creek Formation:

Kunzmann, M., and Blaikie, T.N., 2019. The ca 1640 Ma Barney Creek
Formation in the McArthur Basin: Targeting diagenetic mineralisation
and depocentre shift. In: Annual Geoscience Exploration Seminar
(AGES) 2019 Proceedings. Northern Territory Geological Survey, 7680.
https://geoscience.nt.gov.au/gemis/ntgsjspui/bitstream/1/88378/1/KunzmannAGES2019_paper.pdf

Yours,

Paul H.