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Fig Tree microfossils
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Fig Tree microfossils

paleontology
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Article History

Fig Tree microfossils, assemblage of microscopic structures uncovered in the Fig Tree Series, a rock layer at least three billion years old, exposed in South Africa. They apparently represent several organisms—among the oldest known—including a rod-shaped bacterium named Eobacterium isolatum and a blue-green algalike spheroid named Archaeosphaeroides barbertonensis, both of which were discovered in the 1960s. The find indicated that living organisms originated from chemical matter much more than three billion years ago.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kara Rogers.