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Deep Time Paleobiology: Stromatolites–A Key to Decoding Primitive Ecosystems on Earth and Beyond

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2017

Abigail C. Allwood
Abigail C. Allwood*
Affiliation:
California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena, CA 91109
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Abstract

Finding the beginning of Earth's fossil record is a long-standing palaeontological challenge arising from the quest to understand the origin of life. Research in recent years has necessarily focused on determining the existence (or otherwise) of fossils in the Early Archaean rock record. Nonetheless, despite numerous reports of microfossils(?) and stromatolites, consensus on the existence of life in the Early Archaean has been elusive (e.g. Moorbath, 2005). However, new techniques and approaches are allowing more confident interpretation of the Archaean fossil record, and the nature of the earliest biosignatures can be used to inform our understanding of emergent ecosystems on Earth and perhaps on other terrestrial planets.

Evidence is mounting that microbial ecosystems may have had a firm foothold as early as ~3.5 Ga (Tice and Lowe, 2004; Schopf, 2006; Hofmann et al., 1999; Allwood et al., 2006, 2007b; Westall et al., 2006; Westall and Southam, 2006). Significantly, there is now also evidence that the Early Archaean record may not be as meager and cryptic as previously thought. For example, the 3.43 Ga Strelley Pool Chert of the Pilbara Craton of Western Australia contains kilometer-scale tracts of a fossilized stromatolite (microbial?) reef (Allwood et al., 2006, 2007b) and provides a large suite of evidence that is consistent with life's existence. Moreover, the rapidity with which the Strelley Pool reef established itself on a newly-submerged landmass suggests that life was well established by that time, waiting in the wings in planktonic form until conditions favored sessile biofilm formation. The rich vault of information in such rocks as the Strelley Pool Chert may shed light not only upon life's antiquity, but also on the nature of early organisms and ecosystems, the environments that nurtured them, the processes that aided preservation of biosignatures and the palaeontological approaches needed to interpret them. This in turn will be a valuable guide in the search for—and interpretation of—ancient microbial biosignatures in the geologic record of other planets or moons.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Paleontological Society Papers , Volume 14: From Evolution to Geobiology: Research Questions Driving Paleontology at the Start of a New Century , October 2008 , pp. 55 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © by the Paleontological Society 

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