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Chapter
Summary and Conclusions
This volume encompasses many aspects of microbial mats. Many of the chapters dealt with their description, their geographical distribution, and their environmental properties. They presented the characteristic...
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Chapter
Microbial Mats on the Early Earth: The Archean Rock Record
Fossil microbial mats provide a convincing record of life on the early Earth. Although mat-like features may be produced abiologically, a careful examination of physical and chemical characteristics can be use...
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Chapter
Disentangling the Microbial Fossil Record in the Barberton Greenstone Belt: A Cautionary Tale
Morphological remains of microbes are one of several lines of evidence for the presence and nature of life on Earth and elsewhere. It is therefore critical to establish the timing of microbial influences on th...
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Chapter
Archean Biofilms Preserved in the Swaziland Supergroup, South Africa
The discovery of microfossils and stromatolites in Archean rocks of South Africa and Australia respectively (Awramik et al., 1983; Walsh and Lowe, 1985; Byerly et al., 1986; Walsh, 1992; Schopf, 1993; Westall ...
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Chapter
Fossil Biofilms and the Search for Life on Mars
Microbial biofilms and mats are documented as fossils in rocks throughout the 3.5 b.y.-old morphological fossil record of life on Earth (Westall et al., 2000). The polymer-rich biofilms are, per se, highly robust...
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Chapter
The Versatility of Microorganisms
Living organisms are ubiquitous; they are observed in almost every ecological niche, from the air to various habitats on land and deep in the oceans. The abiding presence of microorganisms has also a temporal ...
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Chapter and Conference Paper
Is There an Alternative Path in Eukaryogenesis?
The transition from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cells (‘Eukaryogenesis’) is still a biological mystery. The present paper revisits the question of the origin of the eukaryotic cell and suggests that the biochemi...
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Chapter
Cold-Seep Carbonates of the Louisiana Continental Slope-to-Basin Floor
Recent research (Brooks et al., 1984, 1987; Roberts et al., 1987, 1989) directed toward improving our understanding of hydrocarbon seeps and their impacts on Louisiana’s continental slope has led to the realiz...
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Article
Stromatolites from the 3,300–3,500-Myr Swaziland Supergroup, Barberton Mountain Land, South Africa
A morphologically variable assemblage of stromatolites has been discovered in thin chert layers within the Fig Tree Group of the Swaziland Supergroup, South Africa. They are commonly low-relief, nearly stratif...
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Article
Filamentous microfossils from the 3,500-Myr-old Onverwacht Group, Barberton Mountain Land, South Africa
The Swaziland Supergroup, Barberton Mountain Land, South Africa, has long been regarded as a promising location for the Earth's oldest fossils because it includes some of the most ancient well-preserved sedime...
