Archean tufted microbial mats and the Great Oxidation Event: new insights into an ancient problem

@article{Flannery2012ArcheanTM,
  title={Archean tufted microbial mats and the Great Oxidation Event: new insights into an ancient problem},
  author={David T Flannery and Matthew R. Walter},
  journal={Australian Journal of Earth Sciences},
  year={2012},
  volume={59},
  pages={1 - 11}
}
The macroscopic fossil record of the Archean consists solely of stromatolites and other microbialites, which seldom offer compelling clues to the identities of the organisms that formed them. Tufted microbial mats are an exception because their formation is known to require a suite of morphological and behavioural characteristics from which the behavioural and biological affinities of early microbialite-constructing microbes can be inferred. Here, the oldest yet reported convincing fossil… 
View on Taylor & Francis
aca.unsw.edu.au
105 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
10
Background Citations
35
Methods Citations
2
Results Citations
1

105 Citations

Citation Type

Citation Type

Evidence for 2.0 Ga continental microbial mats in a paleodesert setting
Evidence of oxygenic phototrophy in ancient phosphatic stromatolites from the Paleoproterozoic Vindhyan and Aravalli Supergroups, India
TLDR
It is suggested that the activity of oxygenic phototrophs may have been significant for the formation of apatite in both Vindhyan and Aravalli stromatolites, mainly by concentrating phosphate and creating steep diurnal redox gradients within mat pore spaces, promoting apatites precipitation.
Biogeochemical cycles (C, N, S, P and Fe) of modern and ancient microbialites (Western Australia)
  • A. Pagès
  • Geography, Environmental Science
  • 2014
iii Stromatolites are “accretionary sedimentary structures, commonly thinly layered, megascopic and calcareous, produced by the activities of mat-building communities of mucilage-secreting…
Signatures of early microbial life from the Archean (4 to 2.5 Ga) eon
Modern arsenotrophic microbial mats provide an analogue for life in the anoxic Archean
The earliest evidence of life captured in lithified microbial mats (microbialites) predates the onset of oxygen production and yet, modern oxygenic mats are often studied as analogs based on their…
Microbially influenced formation of Neoarchean ooids
TLDR
It is concluded that the oldest known calcitic ooids were likely formed through processes similar to those that mediate the accretion of ooids in similar environments today, including formation within a microbial biosphere.
Carbonate-rich dendrolitic cones: insights into a modern analog for incipient microbialite formation, Little Hot Creek, Long Valley Caldera, California
TLDR
The dendrolitic-conical structures in Cone Pool constitute a modern analog of incipient microbialite formation by filamentous microbiota that are morphologically distinct from any structure described previously, providing a new model system to address how microbial mats may be preserved over geological timescales.
Most ancient evidence for life in the Barberton greenstone belt: Microbial mats and biofabrics of the ∼3.47 Ga Middle Marker horizon
The Archean origin of oxygenic photosynthesis and extant cyanobacterial lineages
TLDR
These results support oxygenic photosynthesis evolving at least several hundred million years before the Great Oxygenation Event (GOE), a rapid diversification of major cyanobacterial lineages around the time of the GOE, and a post-Cryogenian origin of extant marine picocyanobacterial diversity.
Microbially Induced Sedimentary Structures in Clastic Deposits: Implication for the Prospection for Fossil Life on Mars
  • N. Noffke
  • Geography, Environmental Science
    Astrobiology
  • 2021
TLDR
A perspective on selected deposits and ancient environments in Meridiani Planum, Gale Crater, and Jezero Crater.
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 82 REFERENCES
Archean molecular fossils and the early rise of eukaryotes.
TLDR
The presence of steranes, particularly cholestane and its 28- to 30-carbon analogs, provides persuasive evidence for the existence of eukaryotes 500 million to 1 billion years before the extant fossil record indicates that the lineage arose.
Tufted microbial (cyanobacterial) mats from the Proterozoic Stoer Group, Scotland
  • R. Upfold
  • Geography, Geology
    Geological Magazine
  • 1984
Abstract Upward-thinning stellate and polygonal carbonate structures are described and compared to modern and ancient stromatolites. Although tufted microbial mats are common in modern settings they…
An actualistic perspective into Archean worlds – (cyano‐)bacterially induced sedimentary structures in the siliciclastic Nhlazatse Section, 2.9 Ga Pongola Supergroup, South Africa
TLDR
A study location is described that displays a unique assemblage with a multitude of exceptionally preserved MISS in the 2.9-Ga-old Pongola Supergroup, South Africa, which is consistent with similar features constructed today by benthic cyanobacteria.
Late Archean molecular fossils from the Transvaal Supergroup record the antiquity of microbial diversity and aerobiosis
Microfossils of the Early Archean Apex Chert: New Evidence of the Antiquity of Life
TLDR
It is established that trichomic cyanobacterium-like microorganisms were extant and morphologically diverse at least as early as ∼3465 million years ago and suggests that oxygen-producing photoautotrophy may have already evolved by this early stage in biotic history.
Late Archean calcite-microbe interactions; two morphologically distinct microbial communities that affected calcite nucleation differently
Microbialites in the 2521+ or -3 Ma Gamohaan and Frisco formations, South Africa, consist of three components: very thin, filmy laminae that are interpreted as remnants of microbial mats; irregular…
Early Archean (3.3-billion to 3.5-billion-year-old) microfossils from Warrawoona Group, Australia.
Cellularly preserved filamentous and colonial fossil microorganisms have been discovered in bedded carbonaceous cherts from the Early Archean Apex Basalt and Towers Formation of northwestern Western…
Stromatolites 3,400–3,500 Myr old from the North Pole area, Western Australia
Stromatolites are the least controversial evidence of early life; they are organosedimentary structures resulting from the growth and metabolic activity of microorganisms1. Before this report,…
Morphological record of oxygenic photosynthesis in conical stromatolites
TLDR
It is demonstrated that cyanobacterial production of oxygen in the tips of modern conical aggregates creates contorted laminae and submillimeter-to-millimeters-scale enmeshed bubbles, implying not only that Cyanobacteria built Proterozoic conical stromatolites but also that fossil bubbles may constrain the timing of the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis.
Microbial signatures in peritidal siliciclastic sediments: a catalogue
A catalogue of microbial structural signatures is presented, based upon the coupling of fundamental biogeochemical–microbial processes and local morphogenetic determinants. It summarizes a collection…
...
...