Green seaweeds played important part in the ocean, long before green plants took control of the land. According to a new study, the oldest green seaweed appeared about 1 billion years ago.
Scientists have discovered the fossils of is considered to be the oldest green seaweeds ever known. Even though it was tiny, the seaweed had a big role: It could produce oxygen (use) sunlight, water, and the gases in the air.
Until now, researchers didn't have (evident) that green seaweeds lived that long ago. Now that researchers have a fossil, they can (confident) say that green plants we see today can (trace) back to at least 1 billion years ago.
Life on earth depends green plants and seaweeds for oxygen, yet land plants did not appear about 450 million years ago. Moreover, green seaweeds aren't the oldest seaweeds on record. Red seaweeds (exist) over a billion years ago, and the red and green seaweeds came from a common ancestor. So the discovery of (they) fossils helps fill the gap and strengthens the timeline for the development of early life.
