A colorful look at 3.5 billion years of stromatolites, peculiar structures produced by primitive life forms that lived over vast spans of geologic time. At once diverse, attractive, and sometimes puzzling, fossilized stromatolites are found worldwide in sedimentary rocks--often presenting striking patterns--where they grew in ancient bodies of water that covered parts of the earth billions of years before the dinosaurs. This reference presents a basic, nontechnical account, along with 636 beautiful images of these most ancient of Earthly collectibles. Stromatolites, and the cyanobacteria that...