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Science 30 November 1990:
Vol. 250. no. 4985, pp. 1244 - 1248
DOI: 10.1126/science.250.4985.1244
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Articles

Modern Cyanobacterial Analogs of Paleozoic Stromatoporoids

Józef Kazacutemierczak 1 and Stephan Kempe 2

1 Institute of Paleobiology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Al. Zwirki i Wigury 93, PL-02089 Warszawa, Poland
2 Institute of Biogeochemistry and Marine Chemistry, University of Hamburg, Bundesstrasse 55, D-2000 Hamburg 13, Germany

Recent and subfossil calcareous structures resembling cystose and subclathrate Paleozoic stromatoporoids have been discovered in a sea-linked, stratified, alkaline crater lake on Satonda Island, Indonesia. The structures are produced by mats of coccoid cyanobacteria growing along the lakeshore from the water surface down to the O2-H2S interface located at a depth of 22.8 meters. Calcification of the mats is controlled by seasonal changes in calcium carbonate supersaturation in the epilimnion. The internally complex structures are a product of two different calcification processes: (i) periodic in vivo calcification of the surficial cyanobacterial layers by low-Mg calcite, and (ii) early postmortem calcification of the cyanobacterial aggregates below the mat surface by microbially precipitated aragonite. The finding supports the idea that Paleozoic stromatoporoids represent fossilized cyanobacteria (stromatolites). It also implies that the stromatoporoid-generating epicontinental seas during the early Paleozoic may have been more alkaline and had a higher carbonate mineral supersaturation than modern seawater.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Microbialite Formation in Seawater of Increased Alkalinity, Satonda Crater Lake, Indonesia: Discussion.
(2004)
Journal of Sedimentary Research 74, 314-317
Microbialite Formation in Seawater of Increased Alkalinity, Satonda Crater Lake, Indonesia: Reply.
(2004)
Journal of Sedimentary Research 74, 318-325
Microbialite Formation in Seawater of Increased Alkalinity, Satonda Crater Lake, Indonesia.
(2003)
Journal of Sedimentary Research 73, 105-127
STROMATOPOROIDEA, 1926-2000.
(2001)
Journal of Paleontology 75, 1079-1089
Microscale observations of sulfate reduction: Correlation of microbial activity with lithified micritic laminae in modern marine stromatolites.
P. T. Visscher, R. P. Reid, and B. M. Bebout (2000)
Geology 28, 919-922
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