Description

Stromatolite can truly be listed in the Rock family >  Sedimentary rock and sediment > Sedimentary rock > Microbialite. So, in regular people talk: basically a lot of squished up stuff that had silica which turned quartz like and wound up in layers that got shifted around and compressed as the process took place. Oh, and it’s pretty cool looking.

While Stromatolite has very ancient origins, it is still being created today in areas like Shark Bay in western Australia. Basically they are fossilized layered deposits of algae within ancient sedimentary rock. Those single-celled organisms are believed to be some of the first forms of life on this planet with some dating back over 3.5 billion years.

Stromatolites offer us a wide range of colors and contain many impurities within the bedrock (which is usually limestone). The most common colors seem to be brown, beige, reddish-brown, and yellows. They can actually be found all over the world, and there are large deposits located in Morocco, Australia, Canada, the United States, as well as the northern European and Baltic states.