Quote:
Originally Posted by vk3ukf
Mineral grains in ancient rocks were found to be ancient bug fossils, a microscopic grain of the mineral apatite had a small grain of carbon material in its core. The core was several percent higher in C12 that the surrounding rock. This indicates that it was was living material.
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OK, I had to try to dig this one up. (Please, please, make it easier for us and provide links to the facts you think we might be interested in. Please?)
This looks like it's about Earth rocks -- not entirely clear from your statements. Is it like:
Discover Magazine: Older, not better - carbon-isotope study of Greenland rocks suggested life existed 3.85 billion years ago? (April 1997)
Quote:
Geochemists can tell whether ancient rocks once hosted life, even in the absence of visible fossils, simply by looking at the carbon in them.
[...]
The rock the researchers studied contained cell-size grains of a mineral called apatite, a component of all organisms. They suspected the apatite might be a marker of ancient life, so they sliced open about 50 grains and looked at them under an electron microscope. The grains, the researchers found, turned out to have carbon cores.
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