In situ laser-Raman imagery of Precambrian microscopic fossils

In situ laser-Raman imagery of Precambrian microscopic fossils

^*Astro and Solar System Physics Program, Department of Physics, and ^†Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering, University of Alabama, Birmingham, AL 35294-1170; and ^‡Department of Earth and Space Sciences, Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (Center for the Study of the Evolution and Origin of Life), and Molecular Biology Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095

Contributed by J. William Schopf

Abstract

Laser-Raman imagery is a sensitive, noninvasive, and nondestructive technique that can be used to correlate directly chemical composition with optically discernable morphology in ancient carbonaceous fossils. By affording means to investigate the molecular makeup of specimens ranging from megascopic to microscopic, it holds promise for providing insight into aspects of organic metamorphism and biochemical evolution, and for clarifying the nature of ancient minute fossil-like objects of putative but uncertain biogenicity.

Footnotes

↵ § To whom reprint requests should be addressed. E-mail: schopf{at}ess.ucla.edu.
↵ ¶ For example, in ≈3,350 ± 110-Ma-old samples of Archean carbonaceous cherts of the Barberton Greenstone Belt (15) and in samples of Allende and Murchison carbonaceous chondritic meteorites.
Abbreviations:

Ma,

mega-annum;

D,

disordered;

G,

graphitic