concept

Pseudofossil

An abiotic mineral structure that resembles a fossil closely enough to mislead - radiating crystals, tube-shaped mineral precipitates, tectonically deformed sedimentary layers. They matter because they have repeatedly defeated claims about the earliest life: the Isua "stromatolites" turned out to be shear-deformation structures, and the 1996 Martian meteorite ALH84001 taught astrobiology a lesson that still holds - morphology alone is never sufficient to establish a biological origin.