Organic geochemical evidence for life in Archean rocks identified by pyrolysis-GC-MS and supervised machine learning.

ABSTRACT: Throughout Earth's history, organic molecules from both abiogenic and biogenic sources have been buried in sedimentary rocks. Most of these organic molecules have been significantly altered by geologic processes through deep time. Nonetheless, the nature and distribution of those ancient fragmentary organic remains have the potential to reveal diagnostic biomolecular information after billions of years of burial. Here, we analyzed 406 fossil, modern biological, meteoritic, and synthetic samples using pyrolysis gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. We explored these analytical data via supervised machine-learning methods to discriminate samples of biogenic vs. abiogenic origin, plant vs. animal phylogenetic affinity, and photosynthetic vs. nonphotosynthetic physiology. Dividing 272 samp

SUBMITTER: Wong ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12663951 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature