2005, 2008). In and of themselves, however, they do not indicate the metabolic characteristics (e.g., whether autotrophic or heterotrophic) of the individual

fossils analyzed. NMR- and XANES-analyses of particulate kerogen Analyses by 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) of pyrolysates of kerogen isolated from the ~3,490-Ma-old Towers Formation of northwestern Western Australia document the presence of aliphatic carbon moieties (CH2 and CH3), aromatic C=C (present in the polyaromatic hydrocarbons of which such kerogens are predominately composed; Schopf et al. 2005), and both C–O and C=O groups (Derenne et al. 2008). The Derenne et al. (2008) study also records the presence in such pyrolysates of an homologous series of long chain (C10–C18) aliphatic hydrocarbons that are characterized

by an odd-over-even carbon number predominance, “a unique characteristic of organics formed biologically since it reflects biosynthesis using selleck inhibitor addition of C2 units” (Derenne et al. 2008, p. 479). The biological origin of kerogen preserved in the ~3,565-Ma-old Apex chert, also of northwestern Western Australia and the source of the cellular filamentous Archean microbes illustrated Selleck ABT263 in Fig. 6, is similarly well documented. Using X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy (XANES), backed by numerous other techniques, DeGregorio et al. (2009) carried out a comparative study of the Apex kerogen and that of the famous and assuredly microfossil-bearing (Barghoorn and Tyler 1965; Cloud 1965) ~1,900-Ma-old Gunflint chert of southern Ontario, Canada. The results show that—rather being abiotic organic matter produced by Fischer–Tropsch-type syntheses, as postulated by Brasier et al. (2002)—the Apex kerogen contains all of Phloretin the biogenic elements (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorous: CHONSP)

as well as functional groups, such as “carboxyl [–COOH] and phenol [Caromatic–OH] peaks” (DeGregorio et al. 2009, p. 632), that are typical of biologically derived kerogen. Based on their exceptionally detailed study, DeGregorio et al. (2009, p. 632) conclude that “Apex carbonaceous matter and Gunflint kerogen are chemically complex… [both containing] similar amounts of nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorous [in which the presence of phosphorus, in particular] implies a biogenic origin.” The Derenne et al. (2008) and DeGregorio et al. (2009) studies establish, convincingly, the biological origin of the kerogen analyzed: as expressed by Derenne et al. (2008, p. 480), the “data report the occurrence of biological markers in the kerogen embedded in a 3.5 By old chert, [an] observation that supports a scenario according to which life was present on Earth 3.5 By ago”; and DeGregorio et al. (2009, p. 631) conclude that available data imply “that the Apex microbe-like features represent authentic biogenic organic matter”.