Knoll, Andrew

Knoll, Andrew H. Life on a Young Planet. Princeton, N.J. Princeton Science Library, 2005. A discussion of the roles of sulfur and oxygen in the evolution of life. 

The common root represents LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor of bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes. Notice that the Archaea are intermediate between the Bacteria and Eucarya, as inferred from many of their detailed morphological and biochemical properties, as well as their ribosomal RNA sequences. The boxed dates indicate the minimum age of selected branches, based on fossil evidence and biochemical fingerprints, such as the characteristic membrane steroids found by Jochen Brocks and his colleagues in the shales underlying the Hammersley iron formation in Australia. Adapted with permission from Andrew Knoll and Science. 

Andrew H. Knoll, Life on a Young Planet The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth , Princeton University Press, 2003. 

---