Probable Life-forms from the Precambrian of the Witwatersrand System (South Africa)

Abstract

DURING mineralographic work on Witwatersrand gold conglomerates from the Orange Free State goldfield, I encountered several peculiar micro-structures strongly resembling so-called ‘mineralized bacteria’1–4 and, in certain respects, some types of ‘organized elements’ recently under discussion as possible primitive life-forms in meteorites5–7. These structures are preserved in some of the minute detrital pyrite grains of the Elsburg A1 and A3 horizons occurring near the top of the Witwatersrand system, the deposition of which is believed to have been completed about 2,150 million years ago8. As the organized elements are indigenous to allogenic components of the rock, they are certainly considerably older.