On the Cover
May / June 2006
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Illustration by Carol Nichols
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It was an idea inspired by the mudflats
of Maine more than a decade ago. In a paper published in Chemical
Geology in 1994 dealing with the composition of marine sediments,
University of Maine Oceanographer Larry Mayer made an important
connection between the burial of organic matter and the presence of
clays.
Through a recent collaboration with
geologists from the University of California - Riverside, his discovery
has been put into a worldwide context, providing a perspective on how
multicellular life could have begun on this planet — or any other.
