Archean Microfossils Showing Cell Division from the Swaziland System of South Africa
- 28 October 1977
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 198 (4315), 396-398
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.198.4315.396
Abstract
A newly discovered population of organic walled microstructures from the Swaziland System, South Africa, is considered to be biological on the following grounds: (i) the structures are carbonaceous and occasionally have internal organic contents; (ii) the population has a narrow unimodal size frequency distribution (average diameter, 2.5 micrometers; range, 1 to 4 micrometers); (iii) the structures are not strictly spherical, but are commonly flattened and folded like younger microfossils; (iv) the sedimentary context is consistent with biogenic origins; and (v) various stages of binary division are clearly preserved.Keywords
This publication has 20 references indexed in Scilit:
- Are the oldest ?fossils?, fossils?Origins of Life, 1976
- Precambrian Paleobiology: Problems and PerspectivesAnnual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 1975
- Diverse microfossils in Precambrian Onverwacht group rocks of South AfricaNature, 1974
- Chemistry and Morphology of Precambrian MicroorganismsNature, 1973
- UThPb systematics and the age of the Onverwacht Series, South AfricaEarth and Planetary Science Letters, 1972
- Carbon Isotopic Studies of Organic Matter in Precambrian RocksScience, 1972
- Early Pre-Cambrian Onverwacht Microstructures : Possibly the Oldest Fossils on Earth?Nature, 1969
- Alga-Like Forms in Onverwacht Series, South Africa: Oldest Recognized Lifelike Forms on EarthScience, 1968
- Dating some significant events in the history of the Swaziland System by the Rb–Sr isochron methodCanadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 1968
- Least radiogenic terrestrial leadsEarth and Planetary Science Letters, 1967