Elso Sterrenberg Barghoorn (June 30, 1915 – January 22, 1984) was an American paleobotanist, called by his student Andrew Knoll, the present Fisher Professor of Natural History at Harvard, "the father of Pre-Cambrian palaeontology.
"[1] Barghoorn is best known for discovering in South African rocks fossil evidence of life that is at least 3.4 billion years old.
These fossils show that life was present on Earth comparatively soon after the Late Heavy Bombardment (about 3.8 billion years ago).
After teaching for five years at Amherst College, he joined the Harvard faculty, becoming Fisher Professor of Natural History and curator of the university's plant fossils collections.
[7] Barghoorn married Margaret Alden MacCleod in 1941, Teresa Joan LaCroix in 1953, and Dorothy Dellmer Osgood (1936–1982) in 1964.