Microbialite


Microbialite is a rock or benthic sedimentary deposit made of carbonate mud that is formed with the mediation of microbes. The constituent carbonate mud is a type of automicrite, or authigenic carbonate mud, and therefore it precipitates in situ instead of being transported and deposited. Been formed in situ, a microbialite can be seen as a type of boundstone where reef builders are microbes, and precipitation of carbonate is biotically induced instead of forming tests, shells or skeletons. Bacteria can precipitate carbonate both in shallow and in deep water and so microbialites can form regardless of the sun light.
Microbialites were very important to the formation of Precambrian and Phanerozoic limestones in many different environments, marine and not. The best age for stromatolites was from 2800 Ma to 1000 Ma where stromatolites were the main constituents of carbonate platforms

Classification

Microbialites can have three different fabrics:

Microbes that produce microbialites

Microbes that precipitate carbonate to build microbialites are mostly prokaryotes, which include bacteria and archaea. The best known carbonate-producing bacteria are Cyanobacteria and Sulfate-reducing bacteria. Archaea are often extremophiles and thus live in remote environments where other organisms cannot live, such as white smokers at the bottom of the oceans.
Eucaryote microbes, instead, produce less carbonate than prokaryotes.