Stromatolites or stromatoliths are layered sedimentary formations (microbialite) that are created mainly by photosynthetic microorganisms such as cyanobacteria, sulfate-reducing bacteria, and Pseudomonadota. These microorganisms produce adhesive compounds that cement sand and other rocky materials to form mineral "microbial mats". In turn, these mats build up layer by layer, growing gradually over time.
The Ikara–Flinders Ranges National Park, formerly Flinders Ranges National Park, is a national park situated approximately 430 km (270 mi) north of Adelaide. It lies northeast of the small town of Hawker, in the northern central part of South Australia's largest mountain range, the Flinders Ranges, and covers an area of 95,000 ha (370 sq mi) between Hawker and Blinman. It is known for the land formation known as Wilpena Pound, while other well-known features include the Heysen Range and the Brachina and Bunyeroo gorges. The Heysen Trail and Mawson Trail pass through the park.
The Mesoproterozoic Era is a geologic era that occurred from 1,600 to 1,000 million years ago. The Mesoproterozoic was the first era of Earth's history for which a fairly definitive geological record survives. Continents existed during the preceding era, but little is known about them. The continental masses of the Mesoproterozoic were more or less the same ones that exist today, although their arrangement on the Earth's surface was different.
Shark Bay is a World Heritage Site in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. The 23,000-square-kilometre (8,900 sq mi) area is located approximately 800 kilometres (500 mi) north of Perth, on the westernmost point of the Australian continent. UNESCO's listing of Shark Bay as a World Heritage Site reads:
The Gunflint chert is a sequence of banded iron formation rocks that are exposed in the Gunflint Range of northern Minnesota and northwestern Ontario along the north shore of Lake Superior. The Gunflint Chert is of paleontological significance, as it contains evidence of microbial life from the Paleoproterozoic. The Gunflint Chert is composed of biogenic stromatolites. 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. The black layers in the sequence contain microfossils that are 1.9 to 2.3 billion years in age. Stromatolite colonies of cyanobacteria that have converted to jasper are found in Ontario. The banded ironstone formation consists of alternating strata of iron oxide-rich layers interbedded with silica-rich zones. The iron oxides are typically hematite or magnetite with ilmenite, while the silicates are predominantly cryptocrystalline quartz as chert or jasper, along with some minor silicate minerals.
The Isua Greenstone Belt is an Archean greenstone belt in southwestern Greenland, aged between 3.7 and 3.8 billion years. The belt contains variably metamorphosed mafic volcanic and sedimentary rocks, and is the largest exposure of Eoarchaean supracrustal rocks on Earth. Due to its age and low metamorphic grade relative to many Eoarchaean rocks, the Isua Greenstone Belt has become a focus for investigations on the emergence of life and the style of tectonics that operated on the early Earth.
Elso Sterrenberg Barghoorn 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."
The Bitter Springs Group, also known as the Bitter Springs Formation is a Precambrian fossil locality in Australia, which preserves stromatolites and microorganisms in silica. Its preservational mode ceased in the late Neoproterozoic with the advent of silicifying organisms.
The Riphean is a stage or age of the geologic timescale from 1,600 to 600 million years ago. The name Riphean is used in the Proterozoic stratigraphy of Russia and the Fennoscandian Shield in Finland. It was also used in a number of older international geologic timescales but, in the most recent timescales of the ICS, it is replaced by the Calymmian, Ectasian, Stenian, Tonian and Cryogenian periods of the Neoproterozoic and Mesoproterozoic eras.
Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology is a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of palaeontology and its ramifications into the Earth and biological sciences, especially the disciplines of taxonomy, biostratigraphy, micropalaeontology, vertebrate palaeontology, palaeobotany, palynology, palaeobiology, palaeoanatomy, palaeoecology, biostratinomy, biogeography, chronobiology, biogeochemistry and palichnology. It is the official journal of the Association of Australasian Palaeontologists and is published by Taylor & Francis.
The Barberton Greenstone Belt of eastern South Africa contains some of the most widely accepted fossil evidence for Archean life. These cell-sized prokaryote fossils are seen in the Barberton fossil record in rocks as old as 3.5 billion years. The Barberton Greenstone Belt is an excellent place to study the Archean Earth due to exposed sedimentary and metasedimentary rocks.
Stanley Awramik is an American biogeologist and paleontologist. He is best known for his work related to the Precambrian. In 2013, he was inducted as a fellow of the Geological Society of America.
Kulpara is a rural town in South Australia, situated on the Copper Coast Highway and Upper Yorke Road in the Hummocks Range at the northern end of Yorke Peninsula.
The earliest known life forms on Earth may be as old as 4.1 billion years old according to biologically fractionated graphite inside a single zircon grain in the Jack Hills range of Australia. The earliest evidence of life found in a stratigraphic unit, not just a single mineral grain, is the 3.7 Ga metasedimentary rocks containing graphite from the Isua Supracrustal Belt in Greenland. The earliest direct known life on land may be stromatolites which have been found in 3.480-billion-year-old geyserite uncovered in the Dresser Formation of the Pilbara Craton of Western Australia. Various microfossils of microorganisms have been found in 3.4 Ga rocks, including 3.465-billion-year-old Apex chert rocks from the same Australian craton region, and in 3.42 Ga hydrothermal vent precipitates from Barberton, South Africa. Much later in the geologic record, likely starting in 1.73 Ga, preserved molecular compounds of biologic origin are indicative of aerobic life. Therefore, the earliest time for the origin of life on Earth is at least 3.5 billion years ago, possibly as early as 4.1 billion years ago — not long after the oceans formed 4.5 billion years ago and after the formation of the Earth 4.54 billion years ago.
Microbialite is a benthic sedimentary deposit made of carbonate mud that is formed with the mediation of microbes. The constituent carbonate mud is a type of automicrite ; therefore, it precipitates in situ instead of being transported and deposited. Being formed in situ, a microbialite can be seen as a type of boundstone where reef builders are microbes, and precipitation of carbonate is biotically induced instead of forming tests, shells or skeletons.
Kulparia is a genus of fossil stromatolite-forming cyanobacteria from the late Neoproterozoic era. It is named after the town of Kulpara in South Australia, where the type specimen was found nearby.
Linella is a genus of fossil stromatolite-forming cyanobacteria from the late Neoproterozoic era. There are currently 6 accepted species.
Jurusania is a genus of fossil stromatolite-forming cyanobacteria from the late Riphean to Vendian stages of the Neoproterozoic era.
Conophyton is a genus of stromatolite-forming cyanobacteria from the Neoproterozoic era. Fossils have been found in many countries, including Australia, India, China and Russia.
