This book provides information about microbial mats, from early fossils to modern mats located in marine and terrestrial environments. Microbial mats – layered biofilms containing different types of cells – are most complex systems in which representatives of various groups of organisms are found together. Among them are cyanobacteria and eukaryotic phototrophs, aerobic heterotrophic and chemoautotrophic bacteria, protozoa, anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria, and other types of microorganisms. These mats are perfect models for biogeochemical processes, such as the cycles of chemical elements, in which a variety of microorganisms cooperate and interact in complex ways. They are often found under extreme conditions and their study contributes to our understanding of extremophilic life. Moreover, microbial mats are models for Precambrian stromatolites; the study of modern microbial mats may provide information on the processes that may have occurred on Earth when prokaryotic life began to spread.

Drawing on a combination of modern occurrences and likely ancient counterparts, this atlas is a treatise of mat-related sedimentary features that one may expect to see in ancient terrigenous clastic sedimentary successions. By combining modern and ancient examples, the connection is made to likely formative processes and the utilization of these features in the interpretation of ancient sedimentary rocks. - The first full compilation of microbial mat features/structures preserved in the sliciclastic rock record - High quality, full color photographs fully support the text - Modern and ancient examples connect the formative processes and utilization of mat-related features in the interpretation of sedimentary rocks

This book provides information about microbial mats, from early fossils to modern mats located in marine and terrestrial environments. Microbial mats – layered biofilms containing different types of cells – are most complex systems in which representatives of various groups of organisms are found together. Among them are cyanobacteria and eukaryotic phototrophs, aerobic heterotrophic and chemoautotrophic bacteria, protozoa, anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria, and other types of microorganisms. These mats are perfect models for biogeochemical processes, such as the cycles of chemical elements, in which a variety of microorganisms cooperate and interact in complex ways. They are often found under extreme conditions and their study contributes to our understanding of extremophilic life. Moreover, microbial mats are models for Precambrian stromatolites; the study of modern microbial mats may provide information on the processes that may have occurred on Earth when prokaryotic life began to spread.

This volume provides a comprehensive overview of the rapidly developing field of microbial sediments, featuring excellent artwork. It contains authoritative and stimulating contributions by distinguished authors that cover the field and set the scene for future advances.

The research field on microbial mats in siliciclastic environmental settings has greatly developed since its establishment by studies of pioneering scientists such as Gisela Gerdes, Wolfgang Krumbein, Jurgen Schieber, David Bottjer and others. The SEPM Special Publication is the result of the SEPM Field Conference on Sandy Microbial Mats (modern and ancient), which was held on May 21st to 23rd, 2010 at Dinosaur Ridge, Denver, Colorado, USA. The volume presents peer-reviewed individual case studies on microbial mats and on sedimentary structures (often called "microbially induced sedimentary structures - MISS") that occur in modern and ancient marine and terrestrial environments. The conference brought together sedimentologists, microbiologists, and paleontologists from 30 countries and all five continents. Topics discussed ranged from the evolution of cyanobacteria, the detection of quorom sensing in biofilms to the taxonomy of MISS and microbial mat ecology. The talks and posters presented fossil material from 3.2 Ga old rock successions to microbial mat samples from sediments of the present day. This volume is designed to present the wide spectrum of research in this multidisciplinary scientific field, and to integrate the many different points of view and approaches.

New possibilities have been brought about by the stunning number of genomic sequences becoming available for photosynthetic organisms. This new world of whole genome sequence data spans the phyla from photosynthetic microbes to algae to higher plants. These whole genome projects are intrinsically interesting, but also inform the variety of other molecular sequence databases including the recent 'meta-genomic' sequencing efforts that analyze entire communities of organisms. As impressive as they are, are obviously only the beginning of the effort to decipher the biological meaning encoded within them. This book aims to highlight progress in this direction. This book aims toward a genome-level understanding of the structure, function, and evolution of photosynthetic systems and the advantages accrued from the availability of phyletically diverse sets of gene sequences for the major components of the photosynthetic apparatus. While not meant to be fully comprehensive in terms of the topics covered, it does provide detailed views of specific cases and thereby illustrates important new directions that are being taken in this fast-moving field—a field that involves the integration of bioinformatics, molecular biology, physiology, and ecology.

Comprises the scientific presentation at Bat-Sheva de Rothschild seminar held at the H. Steinitz Marine Biology Lab in Eilat, Israel, Sept. 1987. Topics covered include: environments of depositions; structure and function of benthic microbial communities; regulation of adhesion and hydrophobicity of cell surfaces in the formation of microbial mats; physiology of major mat-building microorganisms. Forty contributions. Nicely produced on coated stock. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR