This fascinating artifact is called a “stromatolite” and is
over 500 million years old. This ancient stromatolite is a rock formed from
sediment becoming trapped in mats of cyanobacteria, which is commonly called
blue-green algae but is actually a type of photosynthetic bacteria. The
Museum’s piece of stromatolite dates back to the Precambrian time period which
makes it over 500 million years old.
How can we comprehend 500 million years? In comparison, Ivan
the T. rex is only about 65 million years old. A good way to put this amount of
time in context is to think of 10 years of your life equal to one millimeter,
about the width of a paperclip. If you do this, one million years is about the
length of a football field, 65 million years is about 65 football fields or
about 4 miles long, and 500 million years is about 500 fields or 30 miles.
Compare one millimeter (10 years) to 30 miles and you might have a chance at
understanding just how old our piece of stromatolite is.
Stromatolites are not only Earth's oldest fossils, but are especially interesting in that they are one of the only visual portals into deep time on
earth and the emergence of life. A small piece of stromatolite encodes
biological activity perhaps spanning hundreds of thousands of years. In broad
terms, stromatolites are fossil evidence of the prokaryotic life that remains
today. Some of the oldest known stromatolite fossils date back over 3.5 billion
years ago, when the environments of Earth were too hostile to support life as
we know it today.
Interested in the time before the dinosaurs? Visit the
Museum to learn more about pre-historic biology and make sure to visit our new
geology exhibit opening in November.
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