Interesting, but saw nothing about how they determined the age of the algae. Hopefully, we have not returned to the circular reasoning of "the rocks determine the age of the fossils, the fossils determine the age of the rocks". The assumptions, the assumptions ...
I assume It says in the journal paper, If you care to pay a few bucks to read it:
www.nature.com
From the abstract: "This model, however, has not been rigorously tested with palaeontological data because of the scarcity of Proterozoic chlorophyte fossils." Also from the abstract: "described", "interpreted", "suggesting" and "nearly a billion years ago, much earlier than previously thought." Just saying.I assume It says in the journal paper, If you care to pay a few bucks to read it:
A one-billion-year-old multicellular chlorophyte - Nature Ecology & Evolution
Filamentous macrofossils from the one-billion-year-old Nanfen Formation of northern China are interpreted as a new species of early multicellular green algae.
"Although there are no reliable radiometric ages directly from the Nanfen Formation, the youngest population of detrital zircons from the underlying Diaoyutai Formation is dated at 1,056 ± 22 Ma (ref. 25), and a diabase sill emplaced in the overlying Qiaotou Formation gives a zircon secondary-ion mass spectrometry U-Pb age of 947.8 ± 7.4 Ma (ref. 26). Hence, the depositional age of the Nanfen Formation is constrained between about 1,056 and 947.8 Ma, consistent with numerous other radiometric ages from the Xihe, Wuxingshan and Jinxian groups (Extended Data Fig. 1; see also Age constraints in Supplementary Information). "
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