
“Oldest record of life on Earth” found in Quebec - mthoms
http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/oldest-record-of-life-on-earth-found-in-quebec-1.3306558
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lkrubner
About this:

"scientists found fossilized traces of bacteria in iron ore samples"

I'm not clear if the scientists declared this to be bacteria, in the technical
sense, or if the journalist decided to use the word "bacteria" as a synonym
for "single celled organism". Does anyone know? Is the claim that this is
definitely bacteria, and not Archaea?

Also, on a slightly different topic, this would mean that life existed at a
time when Earth was still getting hit with immense asteroids, of the type that
would leave craters at least 800 kilometers across (as we know was happening
to the moon at the same time). Everyone I've read on this topic assumes such a
massive hit would sterilize the whole planet. So did the single celled
organisms survive such hits, or was life re-created many times?

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M_Grey
>Also, on a slightly different topic, this would mean that life existed at a
time when Earth was still getting hit with immense asteroids, of the type that
would leave craters at least 800 kilometers across (as we know was happening
to the moon at the same time). Everyone I've read on this topic assumes such a
massive hit would sterilize the whole planet. So did the single celled
organisms survive such hits, or was life re-created many times?

Nobody knows! It's an important question though, especially if you believe in
some variant of the 'Great Filter' hypothesis. If the leap from organic
molecules to single-celled life is "easy" (as demonstrated by repeated
iteration in our past) then the filter lays beyond that. Then the question is
whether multicellular life is the big leap?

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Raphmedia
I strongly recommend visiting the Miguasha National Park (which is a Unesco
World Heritage Site) if you are in Quebec.

They have a great collection of fossils and some great trails you can hike on.

It's close to a lot of touristic areas too!

[http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/686](http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/686)

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sebtoast
I just wanted to point out that it is in the province of Quebec but pretty far
from the bigger cities like Montréal or Quebec City (about 8 hour drive from
Montréal).

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Raphmedia
I'm not exactly sure as to how they do it because as a local I simply drive
the 8 hours but a lot of tourists choose to spent their vacation in that
region of Quebec, skipping the city life Montréal and Québec City.

I see a lot of Europeans and a lot of Asians tourist when I go to Gaspé!

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sebtoast
That's actually pretty cool. I'm trying to go to Gaspé/Percé for my next
vacation.

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Raphmedia
Make sure you visit les Îles-de-la-Madeleine (Magdalen Islands) at least once
in your life! Pretty unique islands!

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sebtoast
I will for sure. We went to visit Manic-5 two years ago and loved it. There so
much places I've never visited in the province yet and I want to change that!

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Ericson2314
I think it absokutely amazing that life has been around on our tiny planet for
1/3–1/4 the existence of the universe. Wow, what a feat!

Maybe we're the 3rd 4th "generation" of intelligent life, or even earlier!
What a lonely feat.

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srean
In fact, for a long time the methods used to date the universe using cosmic
observation would gave us dates that were more recent than some of the older
rocks on earth.

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aaron695
More balance link -

[http://www.bbc.com/news/science-
environment-39117523](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39117523)

