Scientists have just discovered some deep sea sediments where apparently, some bacteria thrived for the last two billion years, unchanged, eluding evolution.

These bacteria are found in the deep sea waters from the coast of west Australia where a team from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has gathered some fossilized sulfur bacteria that is estimated to be 1.8 billion years old and made a comparison from other bacteria that thrived in the same region 2.3 billion years ago. 

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Many would think that this ancient bacteria would go through Charles Darwin's law of evolution and would already appear different however, researchers found both sets of bacteria were the same.

According to lead author J. William Schopf from UCLA, life for the bacteria has not evolved for 2 billion years which is about half the history of Earth and this lack of evolution needs an explanation.

However, even if bacterial appearances have not changed since 2 biilion years ago, these micro organisms are still in line with Darwinian theory of evolution. According to the theory, a species will not evolve unless its environment changes physically or biologically. The deep sea environment of the sulfur bacteria has apparently remained the same for three billion years. 

Schopf further explains that these micro organisms are well adapted to this simple and very stable environment. If the organisms existed in an environment that would not change yet they still continued to evolve, then the Darwinian theory of evolution would have been debunked or flawed.

So how did these micro organisms subsisted for millions of years? The key to their longevity is the Great Oxidation Event that happened some 2.2 to 2.4 billion years ago. The event caused a significant increase in sulfate and nitrate which would become the only nutrition these baceria needed to survive for eons.

These findings are published in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

TagsScientists Discover Ancient Organism That Escaped Evolution for 2 Billion Years, charles darwin, theory of evolution, ancient bacteria, deep sea organism bacteria not evolved 2 billion years