1. But Oxford's Martin Brasier and Laura Cotton have now pushed back the "amber window" to 140 million years ago, during the heyday of the dinosaurs.

2. Professor Brasier suggested that the findings open the possibility of finding early life elsewhere.

3. Still, Brasier asserts that the light carbon enrichments may well be able to form through lifeless chemical reactions—much as Fedo and others have argued could have occurred at Akilia.

4. Brasier of the University of Oxford and seven of his colleagues published the first robust re analysis of Schopf's 1993 conclusions.

5. It confirms there were bacteria at this time, living without oxygen, " Martin Brasier, a professor at Oxford University, said in a press release.