Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, we all know that the ocean is blue, or sometimes a nice blue green, or during storms and inky blue black. But this wasn't always the case. Prehistoric oceans were not blue like they are today. The scientists have discovered that ancient oceans were actually a rosy hue, making pink the world's oldest known color created
by living things. The researchers, who published their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences back in found the pink pigment in bacteria fossils that date back one point one billion years in what's now part of the Sahara Desert in Mauritania, West Africa, but was once a vast ocean. The fossils were of tiny cyana bacteria, which are single celled organisms that are thought to have survived on sunlight, using an ancient form of chlorophyll to
capture the light energy and convert it into food. These cyana bacteria were the dominant life form in Earth's oceans for eons. They seem to even predate algae, which have only been traced back about six hundred and fifty million years. The bacteria were so small and so prevalent that the researchers think they actually prevented larger life forms from evolving for hundreds of millions of years because there are thousand
times smaller than even tiny algae. It wasn't until algae started taking over that there was enough of a food source for larger, more active organisms to thrive. But what made these little microbes think pink? The fossilized chlorophyll inside the bacteria was concentrated into dark red and purple hues, But in pulverizing and studying the bacteria molecules, the researchers found the pigment to be a brilliant, bright pink, which means that when diluted by water or soil, it would
have lent a pink cast to earth and sea. This is unlike modern chlorophyllm, which today is the bright green compound that lets plants turn light into food and gives most plants, from trees to grass to cabbage their green color. While it is rare for ancient chlorophyll to be preserved, these samples were probably formed when a bloom of Cyana bacteria quickly sank to the sea floor, where the environment
was lacking the oxygen molecules that bolster decay. Once they sank, the microbes eventually fossilized, and the rock they became part of remained motionless and in one piece for a billion
years for the researchers to make this discovery. Today's episode is based on the article Earth's oldest color was pink on how stuff works dot Com, written by Lori l. D. Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff works dot Com, and it is produced by Tyler Play four more podcasts from my heart Radio is at the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.