The author believes that these structures may be the fossilized remains of horn sponges that lived on carbonate reefs for another 90 million years before the oxygen level on Earth rose to concentrations that are considered necessary to maintain animal life.

If the scientist's assumptions are confirmed, it will turn out that the evolution of early animals on our planet occurred independently of oxygenation – oxygen saturation of the atmosphere, and the very first organisms were able to survive the most severe global glaciations of the cryogenic period in the history of the Earth, which occurred between 720 and 635 million years ago.

Judging by the results of micropetrographic reconstruction, the oldest sponge was an attached worm-like organism with a size from the first millimeters to a centimeter, which lived on the surface or inside reefs built by calcifying cyanobacteria-photosynthesizers.

The rarity of the finds of sponges of Neoproterozoic age is explained by the fact that, most likely, they did not have mineralized skeletons – siliceous or calcareous, but consisted exclusively of protein – spongin or keratin compounds. Therefore, the scientist believes, in ancient deposits it is necessary to look not for skeletal elements – spicules – but for prints of soft tissues that have preserved the structure. Paleontologists have met such structures before, but interpreted them as fossil colonies of algae or protozoa.

The biosphere formed 3.5—4.5 billion. years ago, it represents a coherent system. Any change in the connections in it leads to a violation of its structure as a whole, as well as individual links, up to the loss of some of them from the biosphere.

All the secrets of a living organism are laid down by nature in the zygote cell, formed from the fusion of female and male principles. It has the function of creating more than 100 other cells that make up any living organism. The process of development of living matter goes in one direction – from birth to aging and destruction.

Scientific discoveries of evolutionary chemistry and biology give grounds to assert the unity of living and inanimate nature. The appearance of living matter from inanimate causes the complete dependence of the first on the second. And experiments conducted under the guidance of Academician A.I. Oparin on the artificial reproduction of life from inanimate nature have shown that, under appropriate conditions, life must inevitably arise anywhere in the vast universe. However, nature rarely creates such conditions.

The peak of the creation of the nature known to us was the appearance of man on Earth. So far, this is the only creature that is aware of itself, remembers the past, lives in the present: and thinks about the future. This circumstance obliges a person to take extremely careful care of the preservation of life on Earth. Nature has rewarded man with reason and thus made him responsible for his future fate, for everything that happens in the living and inanimate nature in the conditions of the Earth. And today the time has already come when everyone living is obliged to realize their personal involvement and responsibility for the preservation of the biosphere as their own habitat.

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