New research from a University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science-led science team provides new insight into one of the world’sSha most diverse and extensive ecosystems of living microbes. The study offers a new perspective on the growth and structure of rare, microbial reefs, called stromatolites, which are a window into the emergence and evolution of life on Earth.

The international research team spent three years collecting data to map one of the few living stromatolite communities in the world, located in Shark Bay in Western Australia. The map of stromatolites produced by the scientists from an area in Shark Bay, called Hamelin Pool, revealed eight distinct “stromatolite provinces,” each characterized by distinct morphological structures, many of which were previously unknown.

Click here to read the full press from the University of Miami.

The study, “New multi-scale perspectives on the stromatolites of Shark Bay, Western Australia,” was published in Nature: Scientific Reports and is available at: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep20557

The research was supported in part by the Exobiology element of the NASA Astrobiology Program.