Fox News: UC geologist's discovery reveals clues of ancient world
UC professor Andrew Czaja presented evidence of possible 2.5-billion-year-old fossils to the Astrobiology Science Conference
Fox News highlighted University of Cincinnati geologist Andrew Czaja's latest discovery of a 2.5-billion-year-old fossil he found in South Africa.
Czaja, an associate professor in UC's McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, discussed his discovery of what he believes to be ancient cyanobacteria at the international gathering of the Astrobiology Science Conference in June.
The cyanobacteria Czaja examined lived as much as 200 million years before the Great Oxidation Event, when Earth's atmosphere began to fill with oxygen. Few fossils from this period have been discovered, Czaja said.
Czaja was exploring South Africa when he found an interesting rock called a stromatolite, formed over time by the accretion of layers of bacteria. The stromatolite contained microfossils dating back as far as 2.7 billion years ago.
Czaja told Live Science the cyanobacteria fossils he found were many times bigger than the cyanobacteria found on Earth today.
Czaja is lending his expertise on ancient life on Earth to help NASA find proof of past life on Mars. Czaja served on the NASA advisory board that recommended where on Mars to send the next rover to look for fossils or other evidence of ancient life on the Red Planet.
Featured image on top: UC geology professor Andrew Czaja holds up a microscopic slide containing a thin slice of fossils in his lab. Czaja has been studying some of the world's oldest fossils to understand the origins of life on Earth. Photo/Joseph Fuqua II/UC Creative Services
UC geology professor Andrew Czaja holds up a rock featuring layers that indicate the possible presence of ancient life. Photo/Joseph Fuqua II/UC Creative Services
Related Stories
UC professor leads film students to the future
April 6, 2026
As a kid, at the age of 10, Marty Schiff’s dad gave him a Kodak Brownie movie camera, and that led to a lifetime of creating stories on film. He spent his summers with that camera, making eight-millimeter movies, with a camera that taught him how to thread a projector, change the film in a closet, and tell stories with the medium he loved. “I always wanted to go to Hollywood,” Schiff says. So later he did, with $200 in his pocket, and began a career that has spanned acting, directing, producing—pretty much everything with the exception of costumes (“I’m not really good with a sewing machine,” he says).
Scientists discover how snakes stand upright without limbs
April 3, 2026
Smithsonian magazine highlights a study co-authored by UC Professor Bruce Jayne, an expert in snake locomotion, about how snakes stand upright without arms or legs.
On track: Hoffman Honors Scholar studies public transit
April 2, 2026
Public transit is where Zane Sawyer’s lifelong passion for travel meets his commitment to making an impact. The University of Cincinnati first-year geography major in the College of Arts & Sciences and member of the second cohort of Hoffman Honors Scholars (HHS) has hit the ground running, designing a research project intended to capture both how public transit works and how its users perceive it.