The Archean Research Group, which includes Prof. Don Lowe and affiliated scientists at Louisiana State University, Texas A&M, and Temple, studies life, surface environments, and crustal evolution on the early Earth, especially before 3.0 billion years ago. Research has focused on microbial remains and stromatolites, the environments within which early organisms lived and sediments were deposited, and controls on the Archean climate, ocean, and atmosphere. We have also discovered the Earth's oldest sedimentary deposits produced by large meteorite impacts. The discovery of multiple layers of impact debris and evidence for widespread crustal disruption and fracturing related to these impacts has led us to explore the possibility that meteorite impacts may have played a major role in biological and surface evolution to as late as 3.0 Ga.