After kindly asking a group of Canadian miners for a sample of some water theyd struck, a team of scientists who had been investigating similar finds discovered that the fluid they were looking at may have been sealed up for 1.5 billion years.And thats just the lower limit. The decaying radioactive atoms in the potential primordial soup told them that this cache of water the oldest ever discovered could actually have been waiting patiently in that rock for anywhere up to 2.5 billion years.But this prehistoric time capsule isnt just toting stale water, its also full of hydrogen which, as luck may have it, acts as food for certain microorganisms. Even better—the rock is able to supply a steady flow of hydrogen into its cozy little crevice, which may just have been enough to sustain at least some form of life for all this time.So should it contain the descendants of ancient microbes—which it very well may—not only do we have a perfectly preserved specimen of ancient life, but well also be able to glean a better idea of how we evolved. Because the potential life held within has been so isolated, it would have most likely evolved in distinctly different ways from our own microbial ancient ancestors.

via Oldest Water Cache Ever Discovered May Hold 1.5 Billion-Year-Old Life.