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Post Info TOPIC: Stromatolites
Blobrana


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Scientists Find Possible Solution to an Ancient Enigma

The widespread disappearance of stromatolites, the earliest visible manifestation of life on Earth, may have been driven by single-celled organisms called foraminifera.
The findings, by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI); Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the University of Connecticut; Harvard Medical School; and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, were published online the week of May 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Stromatolites ("layered rocks") are structures made of calcium carbonate and shaped by the actions of photosynthetic cyanobacteria and other microbes that trapped and bound grains of coastal sediment into fine layers. They showed up in great abundance along shorelines all over the world about 3.5 billion years ago.
The growing bacterial community secreted sticky compounds that bound the sediment grains around themselves, creating a mineral "microfabric" that accumulated to become massive formations. Stromatolites dominated the scene for more than two billion years, until late in the Proterozoic Eon.
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Blobrana


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A 3.45-Million-Year-Old Diet

Australia is famous for its ancient, rugged landscapes of arid deserts and windswept rock formations. Some regions of the continent have remained relatively untouched by geology for over billions of years. Because of this, scientists have tramped all across the "sunburnt country" in search of clues about Earth's past biosphere and environment. Now, with some clever isotopic study, a team of scientists is using ancient Australian rocks to reveal information about the metabolic pathways used by microorganisms billions of years ago.
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Blobrana


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Colony of stromatolites found in Giant's Causeway

In a small grey puddle tucked into a corner of the world famous Giant's Causeway, scientists have made an extraordinary find.
A colony of stromatolites - tiny structures made by a primitive blue-green algae.
Stromatolites are the oldest known fossils in the world.
The tiny algae or bacteria that build them are also thought to be the most ancient life form that is still around today, after more than three billion years.
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