President's Dream Colloquium, "Studying Material from Mars"

Abstract

William (Bill) Schopf, Professor of Paleobiology, UCLA Department of Earth and Space Sciences, is one of the world's top paleobiologists. His groundbreaking research extended the generally accepted scientific date for the beginning of life from 600 million to 3.5 billion years in the past, through finding the oldest cellular fossils on earth and proving that they were organic. (The verdict: The fossils are similar to today's pond scum.)