“The Pilbara region of Western Australia is one of the rare geological regions that provides insight into the early evolution of life on Earth,” explained Prof David Wacey from the University of Western Australia, who is a co-author of the paper published in the journal Astrobiology.
“The significance of microbially induced sedimentary structures is that they not only demonstrate the presence of life, but also the presence of whole microbial ecosystems that could co-ordinate with one another to respond to changes in their environment.”
The paleontologists discovered the various microbially induced sedimentary structures in the early Archean coastal flats preserved in the Dresser Formation and found close similarities in both form and preservation style to sedimentary structures in younger rocks.
“The research extended the geological record of microbially induced sedimentary structures by almost 300 million years and showed that complex mat-forming microbial communities likely existed almost 3.5 billion years ago,” Dr Noffke concluded.
