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Palaeontology

Respect for stromatolites

Is it time to stop worrying over whether the ancient structures called stromatolites are of microbial origin? ‘Yes’ is the answer to emerge from field and lab work on a 3,430-million-year-old marine ecosystem.

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Figure 1: Structure in the Strelley Pool Chert, Western Australia.

S. M. AWRAMIK

Figure 2: Cutting through the complexities of stromatolites.

S. M. AWRAMIK

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Awramik, S. Respect for stromatolites. Nature 441, 700–701 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/441700a

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