EPSS Colloquium Winter-2018

How to recognize signs of life in past sediments from Earth or other planets? Signatures of microbial life are preserved from 80 percent of Earth's history, but these biosignatures can be difficult to recognize or interpret. Specifically, it is often unclear to what extent microbial metabolisms and microbial interactions with minerals and sediments promote fossilization in siliciclastic sediments. This talk will highlight some questions that arise from the record on the early Earth and address them by taphonomic experiments. The utility of these insights will be also discussed in the context of the search for life on early Mars.