For Dawson’s calm and steady hand
Is known feared by young and old.
Anonymous, 1869, extract from Eozöon canadense [ a Poem]
My April 29, 2016 blog posting summarized the dispute as to whether Eozoön Canadense is organic (as claimed by Sir William Dawson, Sir William E. Logan and William B. Carpenter) or inorganic (as claimed by William King, Thomas Rowney, H. J. Carter, Otto Hahn, Karl Möbius, J. W. Gregory, and others).
There are five main types of Eozoön Canadense (all from the Grenville province of the Precambrian Shield):
- the Burgess type, alternating bands of dark green serpentine with grains of spinel and thinner bands of grey dolomite, from North Burgess, south of Perth, Ontario
- the Calumet type, alternating bands of a light grey clinopyroxene and bands of calcite, from Grand Calumet along the Ottawa River
- the Côte St. Pierre type, alternating layers of white calcite and light green serpentine, from near Grenville, Quebec
- the Tudor type, parallel crescentic bands of calcite, from Tudor township in Hastings County, Ontario about 45 miles inland from the shore of Lake Ontario, in comparatively unaltered crystalline limestone
- the Huntingdon type, quartz bands alternating with bands of tremolite and calcite, from the Henderson Talc mine a few miles southeast of Madoc, in Huntingdon Township, Hastings County, Ontario
I concluded my 2016 blog posting by noting that “It was left to work in the early 1980's by Marika S. Bourque and other members of the Ontario Geological Survey to recognize and promote the Huntingdon type Eozoon, namely quartz bands alternating with bands of tremolite and calcite, from a few miles southeast of Madoc, and found in surrounding townships, as being of biogenic origin– silicified and recrystallized algal colonies. Bartlett and DeKemp (1987) comment “Eozoon canadense comprises several similar, but distinct morphologies. A biogenic origin for one of these forms, the “huntingdon” type, has recently gained general acceptance, largely due to the contribution of M.S. Bourque to the present study. This does not, however, imply an organic origin for the other Eozoon canadense forms...” R. M. Easton (1992), relying on Bourque and deKemp, commented “Eozoon canadense huntingdon is an algal-laminate stromatolite. Other E. canadense types, however, may not be biosedimentary in origin and should be regarded for the moment as pseudofossils...” One is left to wonder whether the Tudor type is also a stromatolite.”
Surprisingly, Eozoon Canadense is back in the news. Sendino ( 2021) discussed the curation and conservation of the The Carpenter Eozoon Collection at the Natural History Museum in London, England. The collection consists of “a huge collection of rock samples from around the world containing Eozoon from which more than 1000 slides were made”, which was presented to the British Museum (Natural History) in 1892. She notes that “The Eozoon specimens were housed in William Carpenter’s private residence from his retirement in 1879 until his death in 1885. It is during this time when Carpenter devoted most of his time to his Eozoon Collection, working on a monograph, accumulating further material and making drawings to support his interpretation of this “fossil” as a foraminiferan.” Sendino’s (2021) blog posting follows a paper by Sendino , Cuadros , Allington-Jones, Barnbrook (2015) which sets out that the Carpenter’s Eozoon Collection was "rediscovered" by staff of the Natural History Museum and that “the collection was found to be distributed in different buildings and contained in several cabinets. Part belonged to the Mineralogy Section and part to the Palaeontology Section, reflecting the early controversy over the inorganic vs. organic origin of Eozoon.” The collection consists of “cavity slides, thin sections and hand samples.” Worth noting is that “Surface deterioration can be seen on the rock samples, which is probably related to the experimental decalcification of some specimens that were etched in acid to show their structure more clearly. ... The Carpenter Eozoon Collection has not only suffered deterioration from general environmental conditions contributing to granular disintegration, but also from the accumulation of dust interacting with the decalcified specimens.” Also worth noting is that “A search of all Carpenter's manuscripts, illustrations, and letters in the archives of the NHM UK revealed several volumes of illustrations and photographs of Eozoon” , including a volume of photographs of Eozoon taken by Charles Berjeau.
Schwartz ( 2022) in her history of the use of photography in science in Canada, and the ways in which photography contributed to the creation and circulation of knowledge in mid-to-late nineteenth-century Canada, singled out Dawson for illustrating his 1864 paper on Eozoon Canadense with a photograph of a specimen of Eozoon Canadense from Petite Nation Seigniory, and subsequently incorporating photographs of specimens in his papers.
Walter Etter (2022), Curator of Palaeontology at the Natural History Museum Basel, gave a short talk entitled ‘Eozoon and the strange case of Otto Hahn.’ Etter’s abstract states:
“ [Hahn] at first was a decided opponent of the organic theory. But just a few years later he made a complete turnaround. He interpreted the structures not as foraminifers but mostly as algae. Then he somehow lost the ordinary judgement. He started to see Eozoon-like structures everywhere, also in magmatic and metamorphic rocks, and later even in meteorites. He published two books on the subject, both richly illustrated with photographs and drawings, and described countless new species and named them e.g., after Reich Chancellor Otto Bismark, after Darwin, and even after the German Emperor Wilhelm. His theories had, not surprisingly, very few support, and then he somehow lost interest in the subject and emigrated to Canada.”
Seven years ago when I came across Otto Hahn’s publication on Eozoon – ‘Die Urzelle '– I reached a different conclusion. I viewed it as an over-the-top piece of satire, written to ridicule and criticize Dawson’s theories, rather than a serious scientific paper. I don’t see how it can be taken as anything but satire even if it consists of 71 pages and 30 plates. Dawson (1881), however, missed the point and analyzed it as a scientific paper, concluding that Hahn’s paper lacked ‘any scientific value’. King and Rowney (1881) comment that Dawson had wasted “some pages in fruitlessly criticizing Otto Hahn's ‘Die Urzelle ' ” is apt. Hahn’s publication was treated as an “enormous joke” by an anonymous reviewer in the Popular Science Review, who noted that “it has been treated as serious by several writers, both in Germany and in this country [England]; but it seems to be ironical throughout; and every one knows that of all figures of speech irony is the one which is least readily understood.” concluding “Dr. Hahn is not quite a Swift, and even the great Dean’s irony was not appreciated by everybody.” (See Anonymous, 1880a). Hahn’s paper was also recognized as satire by another reviewer who commented “Dr. Dawson also criticized at length a contribution by Dr. Otto Hahn to the literature of Eozoon, which he appears to have taken for a serious instead of ironical production.” (See Anonymous, 1880b).
This year Bechly (2023), Dolan (2023), O’Connor (2023) to varying degrees reviewed the history of Eozoon Canadense up until O’Brien (1970) and Hofmann (1971) and relied on reviews such as Schopf (2000), Adelman ( 2007), Brasier (2009), Roosth (2018) to conclude that Eozoon is inorganic, without mentioning the work by the Ontario Geological Survey. Further, it does not appear that any of Bechly (2023), Dolan (2023), O’Connor (2023) sectioned, analysed or looked closely at any specimen of Eozoon.
What is needed is both [A] a careful review of the five main types of Eozoon Canadense using modern techniques, as was recently done by Lee and Riding (2021) who looked at the stromatolite Cryptozoön of upper New York State and concluded that it is a keratose sponge microbial consortium, and [B] a comparison of specimens and outcrops of Eozoon with examples of stromatolites found in the Grenville marbles of Ontario and Quebec. I make that suggestion because photographs of stromatolites in Precambrian carbonates in peer-reviewed publications (e.g., see Wacey (2010), figure 7b, 7c; Hickman-Lewis, Westall & Cavalazzi (2018) Figs. 42.2 and 42.3: finely laminated, carbonaceous, crinkly, nonisopachous horizons interpreted as microbial mats with flat-lying and microtufted morphologies) look suspiciously like drawings and photographs of specimens of Eozoon.
Christopher Brett
Ottawa, Ontario
References and Suggested Reading
Adelman, Juliana, 2007: Eozoön: debunking the dawn animal. Endeavour Volume 31, Issue 3, September 2007, Pages 94-98 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.endeavour.2007.07.002
Anonymous, 1869: Eozöon canadense [ a Poem], in Exeter Change for British Lions, at Pages 24-25, Published for the Exeter Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Edited by John C. Brough (alias, Snug the Joiner). London: Benjamin Pardon & Son, 32 pages https://www.palaeopoems.com/palaeopoems/eozoon-canadense
https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Exeter_Change_for_British_Lions/EAABAAAAYAAJ
Anonymous 1880a: The Eozoon Question. Popular Science Review, New Series, Volume IV, No. XIV, pages- 176 - 178 https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/192451#page/198/mode/1up
Anonymous 1880b: Eozoon Canadense. Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society, Volume III, 471-472 https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/37125#page/527/mode/1up
Antcliffe, Jonathan and Nicola Mcloughlin, 2009: Deciphering fossil evidence for the origin of life and the origin of animals: Common challenges in different worlds. From Fossils to Astrobiology pp 211–229 Cellular Origin, Life in Extreme Habitats and Astrobiology, vol 12. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8837-7_10 available on https://www.researchgate.net
Bartlett, J .R. and DeKemp , E. A., 1987: Lithofacies, Stromatolite Localities, Metallic Mineral Occurrences, and Geochemical Anomalies associated with Carbonate Metasediments of the Burleigh Falls-Bancroft-Madoc Area, Southern Ontario. Ontario Geological Survey, Map. P.3079
Bechly, Günter , 2023: Fossil Friday: Eozoön, the Dawn Animal Fallen from Grace. Blog posting dated July 21, 2023,
https://evolutionnews.org/2023/07/fossil-friday-eozoon-the-dawn-animal-fallen-from-grace/
Black, Riley, 2020: Why It's So Difficult to Find Earth's Earliest Life. Smithsonian Magazine.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/earth-earliest-life-fossils-stromatolites-180974442/ [photo of Stromatolites at Strelley Pool chert (SPC) in Western Australia ]
Brasier, Martin D., 2009: Setting the scene: milestones in the search for early life on earth. In Wacey, D., (ed.) Early Life on Earth, Springer, Berlin, pp 1-19. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4020-9389-0_1
https://www.academia.edu/440648/Milestones_in_the_Search_for_Early_Life_on_Earth
Bressanon, David, 2014: Charles Darwin and the Early Search for Extraterrestrial Life
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/history-of-geology/charles-darwin-and-the-early-search-for-extraterrestrial-life/
Brett, Christopher P., 2016: A specimen of Eozoon Canadense at the Matheson House Museum in Perth, Ontario. Blog posting dated Friday, April 29, 2016
http://fossilslanark.blogspot.com/2016/04/
Dawson, J. William, 1881: Notes on Recent Controversies respecting Eozoon Canadense. Canadian Naturalist, Vol. 9, pages 228 -240 https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/32317#page/241/mode/1up
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejop.2022.125955
Easton, R. M., 1992: The Grenville Province and Proterozoic History of Central and Southern Ontario, Chapter 19 in Geology of Ontario, Ontario Geological Survey Special Volume 4, Part 1, pages 715-904 at 796-797
Etter. Walter, 2022: Eozoon and the strange case of Otto Hahn. Abstract Volume, 20th Swiss Geoscience Meeting 18-20 November 2022, Lausanne. Abstract 5.4 at page 180.
https://geoscience-meeting.ch/sgm2022/program/session-program/
Carter, T.R. 1984: Metallogeny of the Grenville Province, Southeastern Ontario, Ontario Geological Survey Open File Report 5515, 422p., 58 figures, 35 tables, and 14 photos.
http://www.geologyontario.mndm.gov.on.ca/mndmfiles/pub/data/imaging/OFR5515//OFR5515.pDF
[Plate 10: Fragment of a laminated, siliceous bed in dolomitic marble at the Madoc talc mine, in Madoc Township. It may represent a metamorphosed stromatolite. Plate 11: Laminated, siliceous rock at the Madoc talc mine that may be a metamorphosed stromatolite horizon. ]
Hahn, Otto, 1879: Die Urzelle: Nebst dem Beweis, dass Granit, Gneiss, Serpetin, Talk, gewisse Sandsteine, auch Basalt, endlich Meteorstein und Meteoreisen aus Pflanzen bestehen: Die Entwicklungslehre durch Thatsachen neu begründet , 1879 – The Primordial Cell: In Addition to the Proof that Granite, Gneiss, Serpentine, Talc, certain Sandstones, including Basalt, finally Meteorite and Meteoric Iron Consists of Plants: The Development of Theory Newly Established by Facts, 71 pages, 30 plates
https://archive.org/details/dieurzellenebst00hahngoog/page/n9/mode/2up [in German]
Hickman-Lewis, Keyron & Westall, Frances & Cavalazzi, Barbara, 2018: Traces of Early Life From the Barberton Greenstone Belt, South Africa. In book: Earth's Oldest Rocks (pp.1029-1058) Publisher: Elsevier 10.1016/B978-0-444-63901-1.00042-3.
[Figs. 42.2 and 42.3: finely laminated, carbonaceous, crinkly, nonisopachous horizons interpreted as microbial mats with flat-lying and microtufted morphologies ]
Hofmann, H. J., 1971: Precambrian Fossils, Pseudofossils and Problematica in Canada, Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 189, 146 pages
King, William and Rowney, Thomas Henry, 1881 : An Old Chapter of the Geological Record with a New Interpretation: Or, Rock-metamorphism (especially the Methylosed Kind) and Its Resultant Imitations of Organisms: With an Introduction Giving an Annotated History of the Controversy on the So-called "Eozoon Canadense," and an Appendix
London: John Van Voorst, https://books.google.ca/books?id=ocq7AAAAIAAJ
Lee, Jeong-Hyun and Robert Riding, 2021: The ‘classic stromatolite' Cryptozoön is a keratose sponge microbial consortium. Geobiology. 2021;19:189–198
https://robertriding.com/pdf/lee-riding-2021.pdf
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33325101/
O'Brien, Charles F., 1970: Eozoon Canadense "The Dawn animal of Canada", ISIS, A Journal of the History of Science Society, Volume 61, No. 2, 206-223
O'Connor, Alan, 2023: Canadian Pseudo-fossil: This specimen was once thought to represent the earliest life on Earth. National Museum of Ireland website. https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Collections-Research/Collection/Documentation-Discoveries/Artefact/A-Canadian-Pseudo-fossil/4272e35f-065a-4605-9be0-90a3404eada2
[Describes and includes a photograph of specimen NMING:F582 in the National Museum that was donated by Dawson, from Petite Nation, Canada.]
Petryk, Allen, A. 1991: Remnant stromatolites and cross-bedding in upper amphibolite grade Grenvillian marble and quartzite, southern Labrador Trough, Quebec. Program with Abstracts - Geological Association of Canada 16: 99
Rayne, Elizabeth, 2021: Could Things That Look like Fossils Trick Us into Thinking There Was Once Life on Mars? https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/even-if-mars-had-alien-life-these-fake-fossils-arent-it
Riding, Robert, 2011: The Nature of Stromatolites: 3,500 Million Years of History and a Century of Research. Pages 29 - 74 in Reitner et al., Advances in Stromatolite Geobiology, Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences 131, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-10415-2_3, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011
https://robertriding.com/pdf/riding2011kalkowsky.pdf
Roosth, Sophia 2018: The Shape of Life, an Essay in aeon
https://aeon.co/essays/the-shape-of-life-before-the-dinosaurs-on-a-strange-planet
Schopf, J.William, 2000: Solution to Darwin's dilemma: Discovery of the missing Precambrian record of life. PNAS 97(13), 6947–6953. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.97.13.6947
Schwartz, Joan M., 2022: Photography: Science, Technology, and Practice in Nineteenth-Century Canada. Scientia Canadensis Volume 44, Number 1, 2022
https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/scientia/2022-v44-n1-scientia07177/1098144ar/
Sendino, Consuelo, 2021: The Carpenter Eozoon Collection, linking curation and conservation. Blog posting dated October 10, 2021
https://naturalhistorymuseum.blog/author/conulariahomtailcom/
Sendino, M.C., Cuadros J., Allington-Jones L., Barnbrook J.A., 2015: Chemical Analysis of the Dust on a Historically Important Collection: The W. B. Carpenter Eozoon Collection at the Natural History Museum, London. Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals, 11 (4): 291 – 304.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/155019061501100403
https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=googlescholar&id=GALE|A490768981&v=2.1&it=r&sid=AONE&asid=6d2733f3
Wacey, David, 2010: Stromatolites in the ~3400 Ma Strelley Pool Formation, Western Australia: Examining Biogenicity from the Macro- to the Nano-Scale. Astrobiology 10(4):381-95
DOI:10.1089/ast.2009.0423
Wilson, Mark 2011: Wooster's "Fossil" of the Week: The most famous pseudofossil ever (Proterozoic of Canada). Wooster Geologists May 8, 2011. https://woostergeologists.scotblogs.wooster.edu/2011/05/08/wooster's-fossil-of-the-week-the-most-famous-pseudofossil-ever-proterozoic-of-canada/
[Includes a photograph of a specimen Eozoön canadense - the holotype in the U.S. National Museum of Natural History ]
