Archean Microbial Mat Communities Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Much of the Archean record of microbial communities consists of fossil mats and stromatolites. Critical physical emergent properties governing the evolution of large-scale (centimeters to meters) topographic relief on the mat landscape are (a) mat surface roughness relative to the laminar sublayer and (b) cohesion. These properties can be estimated for fossil samples under many circumstances. A preliminary analysis of Archean mat cohesion suggests that mats growing in shallow marine environments from throughout this time had cohesions similar to those of modern shallow marine mats. There may have been a significant increase in mat strength at the end of the Archean.

published proceedings

  • ANNUAL REVIEW OF EARTH AND PLANETARY SCIENCES, VOL 39

author list (cited authors)

  • Tice, M. M., Thornton, D., Pope, M. C., Olszewski, T. D., & Gong, J.

citation count

  • 44

complete list of authors

  • Tice, Michael M||Thornton, Daniel CO||Pope, Michael C||Olszewski, Thomas D||Gong, Jian

publication date

  • May 2011