Evidence of Life May Have Been Misjudged

A 3.85-billion-year-old, green-and-white stone formation on an island near Greenland was once thought to contain the earliest known evidence of life on Earth, but a study suggests it formed from molten rock at temperatures too hot for life.

A 1996 study concluded that rocks on the offshore island of Akilia contained a high ratio of the isotope carbon-12, which was interpreted as evidence of microscopic life billions of years ago.

But a study by geologists Christopher M. Fedo of George Washington University and Martin J. Whitehouse of the Swedish Museum of Natural History concludes that the Akilia deposit was formed from superheated melted rock and that the enriched levels of carbon-12 could have been caused by chemical action, not by some life form. Their findings are in the May 24 issue of Science.