Who built the ancient rocky structures found by scientists recently?”
Ancient microbes left quite an impression on Earth. Scientists have found evidence that microbial communities built 3.45-billion-year-old stromatolites, which are layered, rock-like structures of sediment that grow in shallow water. Dark bands of organic layers — fossilized microbes — were found in stromatolites from the Strelley Pool formation in Western Australia. Combined with other data, the finding suggests that microbes began building the stromatolites just over a billion years after the Earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago, according to researchers from the Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.
Ancient microbes left quite an impression on Earth. Scientists have found evidence that microbial communities built 3.45-billion-year-old stromatolites, which are layered, rock-like structures of sediment that grow in shallow water. Dark bands of organic layers — fossilized microbes — were found in stromatolites from the Strelley Pool formation in Western Australia. Combined with other data, the finding suggests that microbes began building the stromatolites just over a billion years after the Earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago, according to researchers from the Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. This new study provides the first evidence of a biological origin for the oldest stromatolites — a subject that scientists have been arguing about for years. “This is the first evidence that will help reach consensus and convince the community,” said Abigail Allwood, a geobiologist at JPL and lead author of the research detailed last month in the Proceed
…which are layered, rock-like structures of sediment that grow in shallow water. Dark bands of organic layers – fossilized microbes – were found in stromatolites from the Strelley Pool formation in Western Australia. Combined with other data, the finding suggests that microbes began building the stromatolites just over a billion years after the Earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago, according to researchers from the Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. This new study provides the first evidence of a biological origin for the oldest stromatolites – a subject that scientists have been arguing about for years.
