[gary]

Originally Posted by Rob_K

That's great news Gary, thanks! A visit to see the stromatolites of Hamelin Pool was a highlight of a WA 'road trip' we took last year - they have fascinated me since I was a schoolboy and to actually be there was, well, out-this-world! I've attached a few photos I took.

Cheers -

Hi Rob,

Thanks for the great photos!

I visited Hamelin Pool about 25 years ago and got to see them.

At that time there was just a tiny, old, faded wooden sign pointing down
to where they were. I had gone purposely looking for them, but for
most passers-by on the road, they would be easy to miss.

Originally Posted by David

Stromatolites were certainly around at 3.7Ga and perhaps as far back as 3.8Ga. And keep in mind that these are bacterial colonies and so probably represent a fair degree of development over the original life forms.

I've actually had the pleasure of holding the oldest evidence for life in my hand. Not only that, I took 5 samples from it and analysed them for the carbon and oxygen isotope ratios of the carbonate fraction. The results were published in Nature (https://www.nature.com/articles/nature19355) - my name appears way down the bottom in the acknowledgements. That's enough to make me happy.

Thanks David,

That's a wonderful story.

And puts you in a unique position whenever you say to someone, "Believe me. You are not old".