Evening star., 1954-05-10
Traces Of Life Found
w Billion Years Old
Finn Reports on Analysis
Of Slotes From Manitoba
By Thomos R. Henry


There was life Of some sort on earth
two-and-a-half billion years ago.
This Is asserted by Prof. Kalerve
Rankama Of the University Of Helsinki.
Finland, in q communication to the
American Association for the Advance
ment of Science here. based ON an ex-
tremely laborious chemical analysis
Of states from southeastern Manitoba.
These states contain carbon. basic
element of all living things. Plants
take It out Of the carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere. combine it with hydrogen
through the process Of photosynthe
and create the molecules which con-
stitute the greater part Of the material
Of all life.
There also is carbon in the rocks. not
created by living things but part Of the
"Sun stuff" out Of which the world was
created in the beginning. There are
three kinds of carbon-carbon IL which
is the most abundant, carbon IS which
Is stable with q slightly heavier atom,
and carbon II. The latter is radioactive
with half life Of about 5000 years. is
constantly being created by cosrnic ray
bombardment of nitrogen in the upper
atmosphere, is incorporated in the
bodies of plants and animals. and
eventually disappears.
Differences Detected
Prof. Rankama has established, he
reports to the American Association.
that the ratio of light and heavy carbon
between the material in the basic con-
Stitution of the earth and that ex-
tracted by living things from the at
mosphere is notably different. The
two can be distinguished by extremely
delicate chemical methods.
Five years ago Prof. Rankama an
nounced certain rocks In north Finland,
among the Oldest on earth, contained q
carbon ratio which indicated strongly
that the element was Of biological orr
gin. The uranium lead ratio In the
same rocks showed an age Of about
billion and half years. This was put
ting life far beyond the time previously
admitted by anybody. The oldest pre-
served fossils. those Of the crab-like
billion years old. There are supposed
worm tracks. however, in older rocks
and iron deposits whose composition
indicates that they were secreted by
Single-called plants.
States Prof. Rankarna now has studied,
obtained near Rice and Wallace lakes
in Manitoba, are part Of the Canadian
Shield, which contains absolutely the
earth's Oldest rocks according to the
uranium-lead ratio. Their age, esti-
mates Of which recently have been
extended, are between three and four
billion years. They must represent
something very close to the original
crust Of the planet. Some Of their
carbon, the Finnish professor reports.
clearly can be distinguished as of bio
logical origin. Thus life on earth Is
pushed backwards in time for at least
is billion years.
Deep Implications.
The finding has deep philosophical
implications. It is impossible to deter
mine how much time elapsed after the
materials constituting the planet were
brought together before the earth took
on its present shape with solid. semi
permanent crust. Following this must
have come the presumably very slow
process of evolving organic molecules
from which came the most primitive
forms of life. The alternative is that
life came here from outer space, an
hypothesis not considered entirely i'm
possible.
If the evolution of life thesis is fol-
lowed it must have taken place. Prof.
Rankama says, with astonishing ra-
pidity and living things have been on
the earth in great abundance shortly
after the hardening of the crust. It
hardly can have evolved in the original
gases from which, the planet was
formed.
There is, no indication of the nature
Of these first living things although the
assumption would be that they hardly
could have been higher in the scale
than the most primitive extant kinds
of plants. They hardly could have been
more than single cells which somehow
had acquired the ability to absorb sun
light to make organic molecules.
Through the thousands of milleniums
they have been crushed under noun
tains and probably subjected to intense
heats until they have returned to the
most, elemental sort of dust.