Some naturally occurring iron-mineral filaments. Fossil microbes? (c) The author. For billions of years, microbes like bacteria have quietly transformed the Earth. They have re-routed the flow of nutrients around our planet, infused the atmosphere with oxygen, and built the biosphere from the bottom up. It is hard to overstate the palaeontological importance of “simple” … Continue reading New paper: The trouble with tubules
Fossilization on Earth and Mars
Fossils provide our most decisive evidence for testing hypotheses about the abundance, diversity, and evolution of life on Earth over the past three-and-a-half billion years. They are also our best hope for answering one of the most compelling questions in science: was there ever life on Mars?
New papers: To Mars and beyond! (But with a conscience)
This week I had two new papers formally published. The first of these, A Field Guide to Finding Fossils on Mars, was written with a host of co-authors from the NASA Astrobiology Institute. This paper aims to help forthcoming NASA and European missions to search for traces of ancient life on the red planet. Three … Continue reading New papers: To Mars and beyond! (But with a conscience)
Sean McMahon 