7" Polished Proterozoic Stromatolite (Yelma) Slab - Australia

Polished Proterozoic Stromatolite (Yelma) Slab - Australia #239985

This is a 7" wide, polished slab of stromatolite (Yelma digitata) fossils from the Yelma Formation in Wiluna, Western Australia. These stromatolites are Proterozoic in age, or approximately 1.7 billion years old. The environment in which these small digitates grew is believed to have been brackish marshes.

This specimen comes with an acrylic display stand.

Stromatolites are the layered trace fossils of microbial life, primarily cyanobacteria. Some of them date back an astounding 3.4 billion years, making them the oldest record of life on Earth! Stromatolites and Microbialites were typically formed in shallow water by the growth of layer upon layer of cyanobacteria, a single-celled, photosynthesizing microbe. These layers often form very beautiful and colorful banded structures in the rock.

These oxygen-producing cyanobacteria were so simple they lacked a DNA-packaging nucleus, but were responsible for possibly the largest changes the earth has undergone. They were the only major source of atmospheric oxygen critical for the development of more complex life.