Professors Discover Oldest Plant Fossils at Northern Lake Superior

An associate professor of Botany here and a University of Wisconsin professor have discovered plant fossils calculated to be nearly two billion years old. The fossils, the oldest yet uncovered, were found on the northern shore of Lake Superior.

The discovery of the plants, mostly blue-green algae and simple forms of fungi, is the result of two years of teamwork in field excavations and laboratory research between Elso S. Barghoorn, associate professor of Botany, and Stanley A. Tyler, professor of Geology at the University of Wisconsin.

The plant fossils were taken from a deposit of flint rock in the gunflint formation near Schreiber. Out The two researchers identified their find as "the oldest structurally preserved organisms which have been discovered in pre-Cambrian sediments." They are "of great theoretical interest in the evolutionary scheme of primitive life."

The plants are considered important in the early stages of evolution because they had two entirely different functions in regard to the energy cycle.