The Strelley Pool stromatolites
Cones and domes built in a shallow sea 3.43 billion years ago — the oldest fossils almost everyone accepts.
- When
- Known to
- ± 20 million years
- Era
- Paleoarchean, Archean
The Strelley Pool Formation preserves a reef of stromatolites in a range of shapes that track their position in the water, exactly as living microbial mats do. That environmental patterning is very hard to produce without biology, which is why these are the oldest structures with broad consensus behind them. Exceptionally preserved mat fabrics survive within them.