Global warming produces new life form

MONTREAL, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Canadian scientists say they've discovered global warming 55 million years ago produced a new form of life.

McGill University researchers, working at a dig in New Jersey, said they unearthed "giant" magnetofossils that were produced by microorganisms from the boundary of the Paleocene and Eocene epochs.

Magnetofossils are the fossilized remains of magnetic particles produced by magnetotatic bacteria -- bacteria that can orient themselves along the Earth's magnetic field lines.

Although the fossils are only about 4 microns long, they are about eight times larger than previously known magnetofossils, the researchers said.

"This is an entirely new class of organism that no one has reported before," said Professor Hojatollah Vali. He said the species lived during a period of abrupt global warming of about 5 degrees Celsius known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

"What's very interesting is we know the specific time frame when these organisms existed," he said. "If you go below it, we don't find them, and if you go above it, we don't find them. Five degrees warmer may not seem like much but there was much more iron available due to increased weathering. The additional iron is required for the microorganism to produce the giant magnetofossils. It is clear a similar abrupt global warming climatic event could have a severe impact upon our biosphere."

The study, which included researchers from the California Institute of Technology, the Curie Institute in Paris and Princeton University, appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.