Elso Sterrenberg BarghoornBorn 30 Jun 1915; died 22 Jan 1984 at age 68.American paleontologist whose continuing investigations of plant fossils successively pushed back the estimates of the origin of life to more than 3.4 thousand million years ago. In the 1950s, near Lake Superior, Barghoorn discovered fossilized colonies of blue-green algae and aquatic fungi dating to two thousand million years old. By the 1960s, he had found fossil evidence dating back another thousand million years, suggesting life appearing shortly after Earth's origin provided suitable environment conditions. The oldest fossil remains of life were organisms closely resembling today's blue-green algae (bacteria using chlorophyll for photosynthesis), found in rock from South Africa. He also contributed to understanding the early evolution of flowering plants, vegetational changes during the Pleistocene ice age, and the formation of coal.« |
