Sulphur isotope data from early Archaean rocks suggest that microbes with metabolisms based on sulphur existed almost 3.5 billion years ago, leading to suggestions that the earliest microbial ecosystems were sulphur-based1–5. However, morphological evidence for these sulphur-metabolizing bacteria has been elusive. Here we report the presence of microstructures from the 3.4-billion-year-old Stre...

The 3.22-3.10 Ga old Moodies Group, uppermost unit of the Swaziland Supergroup in the Barberton Greenstone Belt (BGB), is the oldest exposed, well-preserved quartz-rich sedimentary sequence on earth. It is preserved in structurally separate blocks in a heavily deformed fold-and-thrust belt. North of the Inyoka Fault, Moodies strata reach up to 3700 m in thickness. Detailed mapping, correlation ...

Estimates of ocean temperatures on Earth 3.5 billion years ago (Ga) range between 26° and 85°C. We present new data from 3.47- to 3.43-Ga volcanic rocks and cherts in South Africa suggesting that these temperatures reflect mixing of hot hydrothermal fluids with cold marine and terrestrial waters. We describe fossil hydrothermal pipes that formed at ~200°C on the sea floor >2 km below sea level....

In the past years a great number of digital library and digital repository systems have been developed by individual organizations -mostly Universitiesand given to the public as open-source software. The advantage of having many choices becomes a great headache when selecting a Digital Library (DL) system for a specific organization. To make the decision easier, we compared three such systems t...

Variations in rock mass properties are well-established mechanics and underground mining. The literature is replete with methods of assessing them determining values that used design or numerical analysis. In this paper, a simplified 3D model constructed for tabular orebody the Canadian Shield instability quantified using ”brittle shear ratio” criterion to calculate volume at risk. A 1-4-7 stop...

Studies of lithotectonic formations within the Keivy domain NE Baltic Shield have shown that was tectonically overlapped by adjacent microcontinents during regional collision processes in Late Archean. As a consequence, continental crust submerged, relative to other blocks crust, and described acquired features classical median massif. Surrounded on all sides systems, massif entered cratonizati...

Cutts et al. (2014) combined thermodynamic modeling of compositional change in metamorphic garnet with metamorphic peak and retrograde pressure-temperature (P-T ) data derived from quantitative P-T pseudosections to determine clockwise P-T paths for several samples from the Tjakastad schist belt. The Tjakastad schist belt is located in the central portion of the Stolzburg domain at the southwes...