By Haley Ritchie, Ottawa Metro News, March 5, 2017
A local researcher has made some potentially world-changing additions to his rock collection. University of Ottawa geologist Jonathan O’Neil was part of the international team that discovered what they say is the oldest fossil record ever identified and therefore the earliest known evidence of life on the planet. The find was written up in Nature last week.
Some scientists, not all, believe Earth was formed 4.6 billion years ago. O’Neil’s team have dated the fossils, which they found in northern Quebec, to between 4.3 billion and 3.7 billion years ago. If those numbers don’t impress you, consider that dinosaurs appeared a mere 230 million years ago and that humans began walking on two legs 6 million years ago.
http://www.metronews.ca/news/ottawa/2017/03/05/recent-fossil-find-has-local-researcher-thinking-big.html