Martin Brasier facts for kids

Martin David Brasier (born April 12, 1947 – died December 16, 2014) was an English scientist. He was a palaeobiologist, meaning he studied ancient life forms and fossils. He was also an astrobiologist, which means he looked for signs of life beyond Earth. He was well-known for his ideas about microfossils (very tiny fossils) and how life changed over time, especially during the Earth's very early periods.

He was a professor at the University of Oxford. His work focused on understanding the first signs of life found in rocks. He used many different tools to study these ancient clues. These tools included mapping the land, looking at rocks under powerful microscopes, and using lasers for 3D scanning.

Martin Brasier sadly died in a car accident in England on December 16, 2014.

What Did Martin Brasier Study?

Martin Brasier spent his career studying the earliest forms of life on Earth. He was especially interested in the Precambrian and Cambrian periods. These are very old times in Earth's history, long before dinosaurs existed.

He wanted to know how life began and how it changed from simple cells to more complex animals. He looked for tiny fossils in rocks that were billions of years old.

Important Discoveries and Ideas

Martin Brasier made many important contributions to science:

• He was part of a big discussion about some very old 'microfossils' found in a rock called Apex chert. These fossils were thought to be 3.46 billion years old. He helped test if they were truly signs of early life.
• He studied some of the oldest well-preserved cells ever found. These were from rocks in Australia, about 3.43 billion years old.
• He suggested that pumice (a type of volcanic rock) might have been important for the origins of life on Earth.
• He mapped some of the earliest life found on land, which was about 1 billion years ago.
• He researched the Ediacaran and early Cambrian organisms. These were some of the first complex, multi-celled creatures on Earth.
• He helped define the boundary between the Precambrian and Cambrian periods. This is a very important point in Earth's history when many new types of animals appeared. This boundary is marked by the first appearance of a specific trace fossil (a mark left by an animal, not the animal itself) called Treptichnus pedum.

Books by Martin Brasier

Martin Brasier wrote several books to share his knowledge:

• His book Darwin's Lost World (2009) explored the hidden history of early animal life.
• His book Secret Chambers (2012) looked at the story of cells and how complex life developed. This book explored ideas about how eukaryote cells (cells with a nucleus) and chloroplasts (parts of plant cells that make food) came to be. He also wrote about a time he called 'the Boring Billion', a long period when life didn't seem to change much.

Awards and Recognition

Martin Brasier received several awards for his work:

• In 2014, he won the Lyell Medal from the Geological Society of London. This award was for his research on early life.
• His book Secret Chambers was nominated for a book award by the Society of Biology in 2013.

Selected Publications

Martin Brasier also published many scientific papers in important journals. These papers shared his research findings with other scientists around the world. Some examples include:

• Brasier, M.D., Matthewman, R., McMahon, S. and Wacey, D. 2011. Pumice as a remarkable substrate for the origins of life. Astrobiology, 7, 725-735
• Wacey, D., Kilburn, M., Saunders, M., Cliff, J. and Brasier, M.D. 2011. Microfossils of sulphur-metabolizing cells in 3.4-billion-year-old rocks of Western Australia. Nature Geoscience, 4, 698-702
• Brasier, M.D., Green, O.R., Jephcoat, A.P., Kleppe, A.K., Van Kranendonk, M.J., Lindsay, J.F., Steele, A. & Grassineau, N.V. 2002. Questioning the evidence for Earth's oldest fossils. Nature 416, 76-81