What and where are the examples of oldest micro fossils?

[Lucky1]

Just as the title asks.  What are the oldest known micro fossils and from when. What examples are available to see?

My other ask is where can I find clear examples of algae ( oldest) and other fungi or alike filaments?

My finds with algae and fungi are what seem to be sporulating nodes from fungi while the algae forms in chains like 6's stacked alternating direction. I say fungi because they appear to show clamp connections through the hypha and asexual sporulation without a fruiting body. The interesting thing of some of those connections cross to what appear to be other fungi that look completely different. This could be due to like what we see today where the incomplete genetic mycelium needing to pair with another to create a sexually viable colony.  

I have found some cool stuff... no one believes me. That's just fine. I have a clear picture of an isopod that looks like a 120micron ish. I need to do the picture pixel scale for a better measurement. It came from inside a solid junk of quartz cavity. My geology, according to my states survey, puts me Precambrian and earlier.  I thought at one point it was up to the Ordovician but more research found that is not the case. Ignore Nevada. I am not in Nevada. I will do the work and share my findings when I am done and satisfied I have no contamination with repeatable findings in impossible places for them to reach.   

If you don't agree with me, cool, you can tell me! I'm ok with it. Please also answer my questions if you can though. 

Thanks every one! 

 

[Lucky1]

This is for show, not ID. Although feel free to throw in some 2 cents. My method was simple. I cracked open a junk of quartz by prying. It had no opening for contamination to enter. The cavity was then taped with clear tape and put onto a slide. I put the tape side down and looked through the glass for a clearer more focused shot without the glare from the tape. Some time in the future I will video and photo document examples of my process so it can be shown just how clearly it is free of any recent life contamination. 

Again this is just a post for the question. I threw this in for back story and explanation. 

[Ludwigia]

I don't profess to know anything at all about this subject, so I'm quite neutral here, but a simple google search answers your first question. The same applies to your 2nd question. Here is an example. Just a couple of questions. How old is your "junk of quartz"? And how can you prove to the scientifically interested community that the cavity has not been contaminated?

[Lucky1]

Yes I have googled and I have seen both of those. However me and google only finds conflicting "oldest" 

I meant chunk of quartz sorry. According to the geological survey Precambrian and older. I will at a later date make video and photos of the examples to show it. Basically I dug it out of solid stone where you can not even see the quartz. I then took an area where I can force it to fracture under pressure. When it did I sampled the surface using tape.  I am no stranger to contaminations. I have grown and studied mushrooms a while back and had to obtain many field samples in which I was very capable of without contamination and grow on sterile medium. 

I will contend this is an entirely different endeavor. This is why I plan on continuing to take samples and verify what I am finding over and over while also making sure my process is free of contaminants as well. 

[Al Dente]

A Precambrian fossil in solid rock would not be transferred to a piece of tape. This is clearly something (plant or fungus) that has grown in a crack in the rock and not within solid rock. 

[JohnJ]

35 minutes ago, Al Dente said:

A Precambrian fossil in solid rock would not be transferred to a piece of tape. This is clearly something (plant or fungus) that has grown in a crack in the rock and not within solid rock. 

Precisely. 

 

The tape itself can be contaminated via handling or airborne particles.  The tools used to fracture the quartz introduce contaminates.  In short, trying to transfer microscopic "fossils" from rock to adhesive tape is an exercise in futile ambiguity.  

 

To study the possibility of fossils, you need to examine the rock, not things on the surface of the rock.  Then, you have to be able to distinguish between geologic features and actual fossils.

 

 

[Lucky1]

17 hours ago, Al Dente said:

A Precambrian fossil in solid rock would not be transferred to a piece of tape. This is clearly something (plant or fungus) that has grown in a crack in the rock and not within solid rock. 

Depending on the matrix. I've noticed the dust surrounding on compacting some of the stones that are mineralized and turned even to quarts. So In some the dust layer was like a fragile concretion and shows multiple stages of mineralization.  I will eventually document the entirety of it all when I have time to focus on only that.

 

 

17 hours ago, JohnJ said:

Precisely. 

 

The tape itself can be contaminated via handling or airborne particles.  The tools used to fracture the quartz introduce contaminates.  In short, trying to transfer microscopic "fossils" from rock to adhesive tape is an exercise in futile ambiguity.  

 

To study the possibility of fossils, you need to examine the rock, not things on the surface of the rock.  Then, you have to be able to distinguish between geologic features and actual fossils.

 

 

None of that escapes me. Again I have extensive experience in sterile environments culturing and collecting. Yes this is a different beast from mycology, and yes I will have to work to prove myself and methods. That will come. I am well aware of the very basic understanding of tools and tool contaminations. I've built countless flow hoods and clean room environments and taught many many others how to do just that. 

I also know that none of these are alive, viable or soft. They shatter like the crystals they are and even have some growing out of them at broken nodes that have snapped long ago.
If some one etched  crab out of the stone and then used a sterile medical saw and examined the content of its belly, would the solid matrix around the crab not shielded the specimen from contamination if it had no cracks? That was my mode of thinking when I chose my target to examine. They are also part of the solid matrix. MUCH like the google link that was posted in reply to me. 

I also plan on further testing just that when I rebuild my lab. I will be sampling and isolating the sporulating nodes and algae chains to further show complete inactivity. I have several different agar recipes that inhibit growth of bacteria or fungi etc depending on what I wish to attempt to grow. I plan on doing many samples and many recipes. I will then isolate each individual colony and examine the taxonomical features. If they line up then yes 100% contamination. However based on my experience I am quite positive it is not. What ever grows I will be able to sequence as well. Then we can even tests its genetics against know database to further identify the contaminations. 


Again I will end up documenting this all and proving my methods. Until then I would still like to see other examples than the obvious google that I have dug well into. I was hoping some one had a nice collection of pictures and such that I might reference and compare. 

I am trying to learn terms to better communicate but I have an issue with that exact issue. Names labels and some times words in general tend to be difficult. I used to teach basic mycology and cultivation. Hell I have even played with snakes and venom to create mutant genetic lines just because it was a thig.

Now I know science has no room for benefit of the doubt and I wont ask that. I will ask for patients as I plan doing much more work on this over the next few years and beyond. I need my house in order or my wife will kick my butt if I stare at rocks all day. 

I  do appreciate the feed back, however I would still love more examples please  and thank you. 

 

[FranzBernhard]

1 hour ago, Lucky1 said:

I need my house in order or my wife will kick my butt if I stare at rocks all day.

That´s the most important: Happy wife - happy life!

Good luck with your endeavors!

Franz Bernhard

[Ludwigia]

Sorry I can't give you any examples and to be quite honest, I doubt if anyone else here is able to, but please correct me if I'm wrong guys and gals. Are you a professional specialist in this line? This is a very specialized niche. I can't even understand the half of what you're talking about, but I can at least also wish you good luck in your endeavors.

[Lucky1]

9 minutes ago, Ludwigia said:

Sorry I can't give you any examples and to be quite honest, I doubt if anyone else here is able to, but please correct me if I'm wrong guys and gals. Are you a professional specialist in this line? This is a very specialized niche. I can't even understand the half of what you're talking about, but I can at least also wish you good luck in your endeavors.

No worries. I was hopping to find more than what is googleable. Also sorry. I re-read later and I confuse myself at times as well! Bruce Willis made my issue famous. Unlike his though mine is from another regulatory neurological conundrum that makes it a faux symptom.  This is why I stopped teaching. I was by no means an expert like the true professionals but I could still keep up with the best of them. ( talking mycology) In paleontology, no not even a little. Im learning as I go mostly. Self teaching this time around is a bit more of a challenge. I can visualize everything and retain the memory of that but in no way can I even memorize the geological time line. I have to go back over and over again just to make sure I don't mis speak when I say Ordovician or Silurian etc. Its quite a frustrating glitch in my internal matrix. Look at the burger now say burger" HOT DOG" snarge it!  < real life example. 

So yeah everything I am doing with geology and paleontology is pretty knew accept from basic high school science.  The reason why I even came up with the tape Idea is when I started to thin section. I noticed them within the matrix. The matrix is extremely fine. Some much harder but others quite soft and fragile all within the same matrix. I thought I was seeing contamination from my diamond saw and water until I put the slide under the scope and scratched out a few of the artifacts by hand. They had been indeed within the matrix. 

Lidya Tarhan even has talks about the bacteria role in the mineral and sediment content. I had this thought well before I ever thought fossils or the time period of when my rocks are from. The shale has amazing layers of pyrite and when I get the time and money to have it sampled and dated I would guess that they will line up with similar samples found from this time period around the world. Its the place that I am and how the mountains formed that gave me the window of preservation with the large amount of fine sediment, pyrite, and high silica content. I am sure as I do more to uncover what is around me these answers will be found and a broader picture will become much more clear.

I'm not correct until I am correct as I am not wrong either.  One will prevail and the answer will be derived from work and proof of. Thanks for putting up with me, even if you cant always understand. 

 

1 hour ago, FranzBernhard said:

That´s the most important: Happy wife - happy life!

Good luck with your endeavors!

Franz Bernhard

Its the truest of truths! Thank you. 

[JohnJ]

Questions:

 

Could you better describe how you cracked open the quartz?

 

Can you show a larger rock sample of what you opened?

 

If you think these things came from the rock, can you find more of them imbedded in the host rock?  (Surely there are many within the rock for you to pick a few on tape.)

 

Suggestions:

 

Repeat your initial process with a sample of varied rocks from the same site.

 

Examine samples of the tape that have picked up samples from various surfaces in your process.

 

 

[Lucky1]

2 hours ago, JohnJ said:

Questions:

 

Could you better describe how you cracked open the quartz?

 

Can you show a larger rock sample of what you opened?

 

If you think these things came from the rock, can you find more of them imbedded in the host rock?  (Surely there are many within the rock for you to pick a few on tape.)

 

Suggestions:

 

Repeat your initial process with a sample of varied rocks from the same site.

 

Examine samples of the tape that have picked up samples from various surfaces in your process.

 

 

I used a dental pick set and forced it at a spot where it would naturally cleave. Some have geode like spaces with bumpy quartz pencils and dust. Some have brown layer in between. I plan on doing a much more detailed documentation when I am not rushing as much to get my scope time in. 

I will add the photo below. 

Yes, I first noticed them attempting thin sections on slides. At first I thought it was contamination. I was even worried it was coming from my well just because of how much there was. All clear! Thankfully. I checked my diamond block after scrubbing it down. Not a good idea for a diamond block but I was more curious of the possibility of contaminations. With nothing on the diamond block that I could repeat I grabbed another part of stone that I flaked off I first put it under the scope. I checked my tile saw as well because that was what I was using for the initial cuts. I figured a fractured flake would be least contact contamination. The matrix is soft enough it wont fly across the room or table etc. Seeing the edges of the flake I could see the same structures sticking out of the matrix. I used a pick to tease a few out. Even I was skeptical about its origin but I could not deny it was biological. I am also being quite reckless with my collecting at the moment because YES it is quite abundant. 

I have a lot more I am not able to share but identifying, at least to some extent of shape of specimen, I am able to separate samples and patterns and that is going to be a huge step in unlocking the puzzle. Its not obvious enough yet for me to share to be able to draw conclusions. I hope to change that soon enough. 

As far as your suggestion I plan on doing just that many times over and from within the bedrock shale instead of the till.  I have examined the tape on a control slide as well. Its clean. the abundance of matter also helps to rule out contamination, unless the contamination originated from the rock. 

 

[JohnJ]

It's difficult to tell much about your rock based on one dimly lit photo.  However, my first impression would not be quartz. 

 

Further, I think any rock, quartz or otherwise, that you can pry apart using a dental pick inserted into a natural cleavage plane is already contaminated with biological material.  That material could be fungi or plant rootlets, but not fossils.  If your suspected 'fossils' only occur separate from the host rock and never embedded within the rock, then they are unlikely to be fossils.  

 

Soft matrix within a concretion suggests that some combination of water, bacteria, plants or fungi have penetrated the concretion.  You need to find the same 'fossils" within the hardstone.

 

 

[Ludwigia]

I agree with JohnJ's statement above. After having seen the last photo and reading your description of the matrix, I am beginning to suspect that your "quartz" is rather calcite. I may be wrong, but you can ascertain which it is by doing the acid test. Calcite bubbles when a few drops of acetic or stronger acids are applied. Quartz does not.

[Lucky1]

4 hours ago, JohnJ said:

It's difficult to tell much about your rock based on one dimly lit photo.  However, my first impression would not be quartz. 

 

If your suspected 'fossils' only occur separate from the host rock and never embedded within the rock, then they are unlikely to be fossils.  

 

It is absolutely quartz within the blue green rock. 1000%. Its almost as you would see in a fossil crab surrounding that is why I used that analog 

Like cell, plant stems, and other things crystals too will have points that want to fracture. Quartz wanting to crystalize has this. A dental pick with a point and a flat pick is enough to slowly work and pry the least amount of effort. 

Also as I have said it is quite abundant throughout the solid matrix of many forms of mineralization. I learned this doing thin sections as described. I did not stop after my first one. I have repeated this. I have still not purchased my stereoscope to give me a better view of this that I am finding difficult to photograph using the scope with such a small working field of view. It is VERY abundant.

Also calcite would have died after months in acid. I have few reaction in muriatic or vinegar ever. I do have calcite but it is few and far in-between. The photo that I used was not the rock I sampled. The rock was smaller and easier to work with to clear. I just used a rock of similar composition for your example. I would find a stone such as that without any exposed quartz and "dig" into the stone usually with picks to remove the quarts. The stone to keep contamination from the quartz would be solid. 

I will do more in the future and show you through examples, and videos, step by step. I will even go so far as making a YouTube video so the unedited full process can be viewed to address any possible issues with my process. 



 

[Lucky1]

2 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

I agree with JohnJ's statement above. After having seen the last photo and reading your description of the matrix, I am beginning to suspect that your "quartz" is rather calcite. I may be wrong, but you can ascertain which it is by doing the acid test. Calcite bubbles when a few drops of acetic or stronger acids are applied. Quartz does not.

No calcite. I only have a few stones that bubble. I have buckets of vinegar, and muriatic acid. 

[JohnJ]

3 hours ago, Lucky1 said:

Like cell, plant stems, and other things crystals too will have points that want to fracture. Quartz wanting to crystalize has this. A dental pick with a point and a flat pick is enough to slowly work and pry the least amount of effort. 

 

Sorry, but this is confusing.  Are you saying that within small pockets of softer matrix, in the blue rock, there are small growths of crystals (that do not degrade in acid)?  And you are able to pry these crystals loose with a dental pick?

 

If so, then crystals found in that soft matrix 'environment' are often loosely anchored to the host rock.  Sediment laden water seeping into small vugs can create the softer matrix and provide perfect conditions for plant rootlets, fungi and bacteria.  

 

Again, you have to find micro fossils within (embedded as part of) the rock...NOT just associated with the rock.

[JBkansas]

The oldest would probably be the north pole dome stromolites 3.49 bya.

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15263

Edited September 13, 2022 by JBkansas

[Lucky1]

5 hours ago, JohnJ said:

 

Again, you have to find micro fossils within (embedded as part of) the rock...NOT just associated with the rock.

It is embedded in the rock with out a doubt. 

This is NOT TAPE just viewing with the lights from above beyond clear layers within the sample that is on the microscope. This is what you can see in the matrix of the rock itself. 

The cut I did on a rock then polished it up to 3000 grit. Everything is looking beyond the surface into the mirror finished layers of quarts. Frozen in time. All the same sample you see on the scope. All of them accept one picture that is tan. The tan photo is a different sample. 

 

Edited September 13, 2022 by Lucky1

[JohnJ]

On 9/11/2022 at 11:22 AM, JohnJ said:

Then, you have to be able to distinguish between geologic features and actual fossils.

 

Now you need to find a couple of geologists (that spend time weekly looking at rocks under a microscope) to help you determine which things are simply geologic features.  Without access to that knowledge, I think you will end up in a bottomless rabbit hole.  Microscopic mineral inclusions are truly a whole other universe.  

[Lucky1]

17 hours ago, JohnJ said:

 

Now you need to find a couple of geologists (that spend time weekly looking at rocks under a microscope) to help you determine which things are simply geologic features.  Without access to that knowledge, I think you will end up in a bottomless rabbit hole.  Microscopic mineral inclusions are truly a whole other universe.  

That's a bit over kill.  Something preserved in silica that can picture as clearly as in amber, and show the cell walls and internals will clearly not be a geological inclusion but a silica preserved mineral replacement of the original biological specimen.

Showing clear taxa within the clear matrix of silica should be enough. I will ask the experts who look at gems and thin sections and all that. I will go above and beyond to prove my work. In time. 

[Lucky1]

23 hours ago, JBkansas said:

The oldest would probably be the north pole dome stromolites 3.49 bya.

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15263

Thank you for this! 

My wife worked for springer nature a while. I squandered her free access 

[Ludwigia]

6 minutes ago, Lucky1 said:

I will go above and beyond to prove my work. In time. 

 

[JohnJ]

5 minutes ago, Lucky1 said:

That's a bit over kill.  Something preserved in silica that can picture as clearly as in amber, and show the cell walls and internals will clearly not be a geological inclusion but a silica preserved mineral replacement of the original biological specimen.

 

Not really, overkill.  Just making the point that a local geologist with extensive experience viewing micro mineral inclusions could save you hours of confusing pareidolia.  Countless...micro examples of 'fossil like' geologic features can be found in silicate based rocks.  Collect others and take a peek.

[Lucky1]

1 hour ago, JohnJ said:

 

Not really, overkill.  Just making the point that a local geologist with extensive experience viewing micro mineral inclusions could save you hours of confusing pareidolia.  Countless...micro examples of 'fossil like' geologic features can be found in silicate based rocks.  Collect others and take a peek.

Totally not a troll question but can I see some examples I would love to compare. I'm looking at silicate inclusions now. Its very interesting. I have a lot to go through on that. Thank you very much!

This should help me a lot!