In Images: The Oldest Fossils on Earth

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Shark Bay, Australia

Some of the more classifiable ancient fossil are stromatolites , which are conoid shaped rock - structures that pile up as the byproduct of cyanobacteria metabolism . In modern 24-hour interval , some of the most striking instance are found in the most westbound top of Australia , call Shark Bay . Here , Brobdingnagian fields of stromatolites are lap by the salty sea waters and give by hopeful sunlight .

Pilbara region

scientist have find out 3.43 - billion - year - erstwhile fossil stromatlites in the Pilbara area of Australia . Here , a landsat picture of the region .

Stromatolite layers

Here , layers from one of the Pilbara stromatolites .

Stromatolites, like those found in the World Heritage Area of Shark Bay, Western Australia, may contain cyanobacteria, which were most likely Earth’s first photosynthetic organisms.

Pilbara

Pilbara stromatolite

Scene in Karijini National Park in Western Australia. We see thin trees, a plateau in the distance and dry, red earth.

A rendering of Prototaxites as it may have looked during the early Devonian Period, approximately 400 million years

NASA�s Curiosity rover took this selfie while inside Mars� Gale crater on June 15, 2018, which was the 2,082nd Martian day, or sol, of the rover�s mission.