Marine microbes likely made the reef.
A strange doughnut-shaped mound in a desert in southern Australia recently made a surprise appearance in high-resolution satellite images. The odd formation, which from space resembles a big bullseye, is likely the remains of an ancient reef, made by microbes and left over from a time when a vast ocean covered the now-arid environment, new research suggests.
For the new research, scientists examined DLR maps of the Nullarbor Plain, a flat, remarkably dry landscape that covers about 77,220 square miles of southern Australia.
"Initially, we thought we had found the first meteorite impact crater to be discovered on the Nullarbor Plain," Lipar and Barham wrote in The Conversation."However, when we took a closer look at the bullseye we saw none of the chemical or high-pressure indicators of an impact." For this close inspection, the team collected rock samples from the bullseye that they polished and sliced thinly enough for light to shine through. By placing the rock slices under a microscope, the researchers discovered deposits of microbial boundstone, a type of rock formed from sediments bound together by microscopic organisms, such as algae.
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