Elso Sterrenberg Barghoorn

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Elso Sterrenberg Barghoorn (1915-1984) was an American paleobotanist best known for his discoveries in South African rocks of fossils which pushed back the estimates of the origin of life to more than 3.4 billion years ago, showing that life originated comparatively soon after a suitable environment appeared.

Born in New York City, he graduated from Miami University and he received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1941. After teaching for five years at Amherst College, Barghoorn joined the faculty at Harvard, becoming Fisher Professor of Natural History and Curator of the University's plant fossils collections. In 1941 he married his first wife Margaret Alden MaCleod, who he later divorced. He then married Teresa Joan LaCroix, and that soon ended in divorce. He finally married his last wife Dorothy Dellmer Osgood in 1964. She died in 1982.