TNRTB Archive - Retained for reference information
A new study helps establish a consistent, unambiguous conclusion that life’s origin on Earth occurred in a geological instant. This work casts additional doubt on a claim made in 1996 that 3.85 billion-year-old carbon found in rocks on Akilia Island (off the southwest coast of Greenland) had a biological origin. A geochemist announced at the 6/11/04 Goldschmidt Geochemistry conference that he could not replicate the original study. His work confirms research done in 2002 that showed the Akilia Island carbon could not be proven to be of a biological origin. This conclusion removes a serious origin-of-life anomaly in that the late heavy bombardment peaked at 3.85 billion years ago and took 60 million years to subside. This bombardment (of asteroid impacts) would not allow stable life to exist on Earth earlier than 3.80 billion years ago, which is identical to the date for the earliest undisputed evidence for life on Earth.
· Eds., “Fresh Study Questions Oldest Traces of Life in Akilia Rock,” Nature 429 (2004): 688.
· http:// www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v429/n6993/index.html; doi:10.1038/429688b
· A. Morbidelli et al., “A Plausible Cause of the Late Heavy Bombardment,” Meteoritics & Planetary Science 36 (2001): 371-80.
· http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2001M%26PS…36…371M&db_key=AST&high=3f059fb40800492
· Linda T. Elkins-Tantour, Bradford H. Hager, and Timothy L. Grove, “Magmatic Effects of the Lunar Late Heavy Bombardment,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 222 (2004): 17-27.
· http://adswww.harvard.edu/org-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=PHY&aut-xct+NO&aut_logic=OR&author=Elkins-Tantour
· Related Resource
- Origin-of-Life Predictions Face Off: Evolution vs. Biblical Creation, by Fazale Rana, Facts for Faith 6 (Q2 2001), 40-47.
· Product Spotlights:
- Journey Toward Creation, 2nd edition, by Hugh Ross
- The Creator and the Cosmos, 3rd edition, by Hugh Ross
- Origins of Life, by Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross
