Definition of stromatolite in English:
stromatolite
noun strə(ʊ)ˈmatəlʌɪtstrōˈmadəˌlīt
A calcareous mound built up of layers of lime-secreting cyanobacteria and trapped sediment, found in Precambrian rocks as the earliest known fossils, and still being formed in lagoons in Australasia.
Example sentencesExamples
- The oldest known fossils are the 3.5-billion-year-old stromatolites discovered in western Australia in 1980.
- The formation has yielded numerous fossils of stromatolites in addition to microfossils.
- They may be calcareous sponges, cyanobacteria, or stromatolites.
- Fossilized cyanobacterial mounds are called stromatolites.
- At first sight, the Shark Bay stromatolites look like rocks lying in an orderly fashion in the intertidal zone.
Origin
1930s: from modern Latin stroma, stromat- 'layer, covering' + -lite.