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ANU Biogeochemistry Laboratory Lead Janet Hope holds a vial containing the world's oldest intact pigments
According to a recent study, sweets – bright pink – are the oldest color in the world.
Researchers have discovered ancient pink pigments in 1.1 billion-year-old deep rocks in the Sahara Desert in the Taoudeni Basin in Mauritania. According to Dr. Nur Gueneli, who discovered the pigments as part of his doctoral studies at the National University of Australia, the bright pink colors are more than 500 million years older than the older. known pigments and have been produced by the ancient ocean organisms.
"Bright pink pigments are the molecular fossils of chlorophyll that have been produced by ancient photosynthetic organisms" To uncover the pigments, the researchers milled rocks a billion years ago in powder, and extracted and analyzed the molecules of the ancient organisms that were there, "Dr. Gueneli explains in a press release.
Once diluted, the old pigments appear in bright pink, but when they are concentrated, the Fossils can go from a blood red to a deep purple, she says.
Implications for Ancient Life
The oldest color on Earth was not the only discovery out of the sea The team of researchers from Australia, Japan and the United States was also able to use the pigments to confirm that the ancient marine ecosystems were dominated by tiny cyanobacteria, a type of bacterium that gets out of the body. 39; energy through photosynthesis. The discovery, published in a new study, tells us more about the evolution of ancient animals.
"Accurate analysis of ancient pigments confirmed that tiny cyanobacteria dominated the base of the food chain in the oceans a billion years ago," says Dr. Gueneli in the press release [19659004] According to the principal investigator, Dr. Jochen Brocks, associate professor at UNA, the limited supply of large food particles like algae. "The algae, though still microscopic, are a thousand times larger than cyanobacteria and a much richer food source, "Dr. Brocks said in his release
The cyanobacterial oceans began to disappear about 650 million years ago. said Brock, when the algae began to spread quickly.This seaweed provided "the explosion of energy necessary for the evolution of complex ecosystems, where large animals, including humans." , could flourish on Earth, "he said.
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