00:00Historically, experts have theorized that complex life began on our planet around 635
00:09million years ago, as those organisms evolved from the primordial ooze.
00:13However, experts now say that new evidence challenges that timeline, and that complex
00:17life could have begun more than a billion years before that.
00:21Researchers say they have uncovered signs of new fossils in the sedimentary marine rocks
00:24off the west coast of Africa.
00:26These are those macro-fossils discovered in the Franceville Basin.
00:30They have used advanced dating techniques to divine that they were created some 2.1
00:34billion years ago, meaning these signs of life predate our previous oldest by around
00:391.5 billion years.
00:41They add this means there was likely another increase in marine phosphorus and seawater
00:45oxygen before the one which occurred 635 million years ago.
00:49The researchers posit that underwater volcanoes may have cut off parts of the ocean, creating
00:53shallow nutrient-rich subsections of ocean.
00:56They say this points to a much more complex history of life formation on Earth than previously
01:01believed, adding that the complexity of these fossils points to an evolutionary leap in
01:05organism diversity, one you wouldn't find otherwise.
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