Photosynthesis, a billion years before the expected

2009/05/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Biologia
• Geologia

Hiroshi Ohmoto geochemical at the University of Pennsylvania and his team have found haematite sediments 3,400 million years ago in the Australian region of Pilbara. According to them, discoveries can indicate that the first microbes that made the photosynthesis of oxygen were formed almost a billion years before what was thought.

Ohmoto believes that hematites is due to the reaction between the hot water of the hydrothermal hole and the water with oxygen from the sea. For this purpose, organisms capable of photosynthesis and oxygenating water would be needed.

So far it has been considered that the first microbes that made the photosynthesis of oxygen appeared 2,400 million years ago due to the molecular remains found in the stones of the time. The theories said that before there was no oxygen, neither in the ocean nor in the air. Now, according to Hiroshi Ohmoto, the challenge is to find evidence of an older onset of hematites and photosynthesis in sedimentary rocks over 2,400 million years to confirm hypotheses.