Western Australia is one of the most significant areas in the world for microbialite research. Stromatolites, the commonest microbialites, are abundant in rocks older than 500 million years (which cover nearly two-thirds of the state) and are key fossils for understanding the origin and evolution of life. GSWA has developed a scheme for correlating ancient rocks that are otherwise difficult to date based on fossil stromatolites, and Western Australia has become a world leader in stromatolite biostratigraphy.
Stromatolites have been recorded from at least 75 of the 163 1:250 000 onshore geological map sheets of WA (nearly 46% of the state).Microbialite localities in (Western) Australia. The map shows localities entered in a database. Only about half of the known localities have been entered so far.
- WA has the world’s oldest known examples of fossil stromatolites (3.45 billion years old) near Marble Bar in the Pilbara.
- WA has one of the most continuous and best-studied records of fossil stromatolites, representing most periods of geological time.
- WA has the best examples of living microbialites at Hamelin Pool and in various lakes that act as living laboratories where the structures, the environments in which they form, and the processes that form them, can be studied and applied to interpretations of the geological record.
- Some microbialite-bearing rocks host mineralization.
- Organisms that form microbialites are one source of petroleum.
- Microbialite-building organisms were responsible for changing an atmosphere formed of poisonous greenhouse gases to one containing breathable oxygen.
Find out more about how stromatolites and microbialites form.
