US DOLLAR
EURO
AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR
CANADIAN DOLLAR
POUND STERLING
Product Description
Stromatolites are the FIRST evidence we have for life on Earth. When space exploration seeks life on other planets such as Mars, the specific evidence they are looking for are the presence of fossil stromatolites - traces of prehistoric bacteria colonies. Stromatolite fossils should be the foundation of any fossil display or collection and yet, they are often absent and their importance overlooked despite their enormous scientific importance in the history of all life.
The Permian stromatolites from the Rhineland-Pfalz region of Germany can be found in layers of colonies with the oldest of the colonies on the bottom layer. At this bottom layer, one finds the smallest examples of these colonies, much smaller than successive layers above. This specimen is a perfect example of that earliest layer. All the small mini-colonies are completely fossilized in their life-like former anatomy. The name is not known but they are the rarest of all the types of stromatolites found and they never occur in large globular balls as do the other forms that are found higher up in the layers. This is a beautiful THREE-DIMENSIONAL form that is 100% natural as originally fossilized. The fossil stromatolites you find on the market are mostly the remaining accretions of the colonies but rarely, are they the colonies themselves. With this offering, we present a stunning portion OF THE ACTUAL COLONY in life-like form, as fossilized.
For the most part, the stromatolite fossils you will find for sale in the fossil trade are actually the accretionary layers formed by the activity of prehistoric cyanobacteria. The bacteria have long since vanished prior to fossilization and all that is left are sedimentary layers in which those layers are sliced and polished for the fossil market, thereby destroying the original former structure. This is an extraordinarily rare case where the life-like soft gelatinous colony of the ACTUAL CYANOBACTERIA became petrified and fossilized as it was when alive. The market has no shortage of STROMATOLITE fossils of these sliced and polished slabs of accretions of the former bacteria. Nothing you will encounter will look like this or be a fossil of the actual living colony!
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for any institutional exhibition or collection.
