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Microbial shaping of sedimentary wrinkle structures

Nature Geoscience volume 7, pages 736–740 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Wrinkle structures on sandy bed surfaces were present in some of the earliest sedimentary environments, but are rare in modern environments1. These enigmatic millimetre- to centimetre-scale ridges or pits are particularly common in sediments that harbour trace fossils and imprints of early animals2, and appeared in the aftermath of some large mass extinctions3. Wrinkle structures have been interpreted as possible remnants of microbial mats, but the formation mechanism and associated palaeoenvironmental and palaeoecological implications of these structures remain debated4,5,6,7. Here we show that microbial aggregates can form wrinkle structures on a bed of bare sand in wave tank experiments. Waves with a small orbital amplitude at the bed surface do not move sand grains directly. However, they move millimetre-size, light microbial fragments and thereby produce linear sand ridges and rounded scour pits at the wavelengths observed in nature within hours. We conclude that wrinkle structures are morphological biosignatures that form at the sediment–water interface in wave-dominated environments, and not beneath microbial mats as previously thought4,5,6,7. During early animal evolution, grazing by eukaryotic organisms may have temporarily increased the abundance of microbial fragments and thus the production of wrinkle structures.

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Figure 1: Photographs of wrinkle structures in the rock record and in the wave tank.
Figure 2: Ridge wavelength in the wave tank as a function of bed orbital amplitude for a wave period of 1.2 s and a median sand diameter of 250 μm.
Figure 3: Mechanisms for the formation of ridges and pits.

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Acknowledgements

G.M. and T.B. were supported by NASA Astrobiology Institute award NNA13AA90A, and NASA Exobiology award 6927184. G.M. was supported by a W.O. Crosby Postdoctoral Fellowship. J.T.P. was supported by the NSF Geomorphology and Land Use Dynamics Program under award EAR-1225865. We would like to thank K. Bergmann for thoughtful discussion and M. O’Grady for support in the lab.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth, MIT, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

    G. Mariotti, J. T. Perron & T. Bosak

  2. Department of Geosciences, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts 01063, USA

    S. B. Pruss

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G.M. conceived this study, designed and executed the experiments, and analysed the results. All authors interpreted the results and wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to G. Mariotti.

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Mariotti, G., Pruss, S., Perron, J. et al. Microbial shaping of sedimentary wrinkle structures. Nature Geosci 7, 736–740 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2229

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