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[7] [8] Different styles of stromatolite lamination have been described, [9] [10] which can be studied through microscopic and mathematical methods. [10] A stromatolite may grow to a meter or more. [11] [12] Fossilized stromatolites provide important records of some of the
Ancient giant stromatolites used to be widespread in Earth’s Precambrian era, which encompasses the early time span of around 4.6 billion to 541 million years ago, but now they are sparsely ...
The Hamelin Pool Marine Nature Reserve is a protected marine nature reserve located in the UNESCO World Heritage–listed Shark Bay in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. The 127,000-hectare (310,000-acre) [ 1 ] nature reserve boasts the most diverse and abundant examples of living marine stromatolites in the world, monuments to life on ...
Collenia Temporal range: 2400–2100 Ma Pha. Proterozoic Archean Had. Siderian - Rhyacian Section of Collenia undosa stromatolite from 2110 million year old banded iron formation, Biwabik Collenia undosa stromatolite from Precambrian of United States Scientific classification Domain: Bacteria Phylum: Cyanobacteria Family: Spongiostromata Subfamily: Stromatolithi Genus: † Collenia Walcott ...
The earliest direct evidence of life are stromatolites found in 3.48 billion-year-old chert in the Dresser formation of the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia. [4] Several features in these fossils are difficult to explain with abiotic processes, for example, the thickening of laminae over flexure crests that is expected from more sunlight. [57]
The Gunflint Chert is composed of biogenic stromatolites. [3] At the time of its discovery in the 1950s, it was the earliest form of life discovered and described in scientific literature, as well as the earliest evidence for photosynthesis. [4] The black layers in the sequence contain microfossils that are 1.9 to 2.3 billion years in age.
The microbes are photosynthetic; thus stromatolites represent shallow water environments in the fossil record due to their necessity to exist in the photic zone of water bodies. Stromatolites typically consist of filamentous microfossils. [17] The oldest stromatolites have been dated to approximately 3.5 billion years old. [18]
Stromatolites are alternating layers of cyanobacteria and sediments. The grain size of sediment portion of stromatolites is affected by the depositional environment. During the Proterozoic, stromatolites' compositions were dominated by micrite and thinly laminated lime mud, with thicknesses no greater than 100 microns. [3]