3.7 billion year old biogenic remains

3.7 Billion year old inclusions inside garnet crystals contain ¹³C depleted carbonaceous material consistent with biogenic origin. Additional evidence in the form of the other elements of life mainly O, N and P were found to be structural bound to this material by using a new technique, AFM-IR. Here we show additional evidence that support our claim. By overlaying maps generated by the AFM-IR we show how the location of 100's of nm sized contiguous domains of nitrile and possibly phosphonate overlap inside the inclusion. This shows that O, N and P are not only co-localized to the same inclusion but they are co-localized to the same patch of carbonaceous material inside the inclusion. They therefore provide spatial characterization for potentially the oldest biogenic remains in Earth's geological record and corroborates earlier claims² for the biogenic origins of carbon in Isua metasediments.