The algae that terraformed Earth

The algae that terraformed Earth

A planetary takeover by ocean-dwelling algae 650 million years ago was the kick that transformed life on Earth.

That's what geochemists argue in Nature this week, on the basis of invisibly small traces of biomolecules dug up from beneath the Australian desert.

The molecules mark an explosion in the quantity of algae in the oceans.
This in turn fuelled a change in the food web that allowed the first microscopic animals to evolve, the authors suggest.

"This is one the most profound ecological and evolutionary transitions in Earth's history," lead researcher Jochen Brocks told the BBC's Science in Action programme.

The events took place a hundred million years before the so-called Cambrian Explosion, an eruption of complex life recorded in fossils around the world that puzzled Darwin and always hinted at some kind of biological prehistory.
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