Fossil of Oldest Green Algae, Ancestor of Land Plants, Found in China
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📸: (Chad King/NOAA)
weather.com/en-IN/india/sc…
📸: (Chad King/NOAA)
The fossil is identified as a seaweed dated to around a billion years ago, making it the oldest green algae ever discovered.
The newly found specie named Proterocladus antiques (P. antiques) measures 1-2 millimetre in size, smaller than a rice grain.
The breakthrough discovery unlocks the mysteries of how the first green plants came into existence and thrived through the process of photosynthesis on Earth.
📸: Pixabay
📸: Pixabay
The new species of seaweed are assumed to be related to the ancestor of the earliest land plant species that first developed about 450 million years ago.
Through geological time—millions upon millions of years—the green algae have moved out of the water and adapted or rather prospered on the dry land, their new natural environment.
From where the fossil was found, scientists discovered about 1,028 individual specimens of the species which highlights that plant thrived in sea-base during that time.
It was concluded that the discovery of P. antiquus helps to validate evolutionary divergence theories for the plant kingdom and could also help answer questions about energy capture in ancient oceans.
