Читать книгу Geology For Dummies - Alecia M. Spooner - Страница 57

Fossils found in rocks provide a long history of life on Earth, going back nearly 3.6 billion years. These early life forms were tiny, single-celled, simple organisms, such as bacteria. But even at that level, life is a very complicated thing. How did nonliving matter become living matter? Scientists suspect that energy of some kind acted on chemical elements, creating the proper combination to spark life. They have even re-created such a scenario in a laboratory. But until fossil evidence in the rocks is found that can provide clues about the nature of earliest life, the question is still up for debate.