stromatolites, considered to be the most abundant fossils in rocks representing the first two to three billion years of Earth's history, may not be fossils at all. Instead, they could very well be just fossil-like structures, as revealed by the recent findings of John Grotzinger and Daniel Rothman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, us. The two researchers have concluded that morphogenesis (development of physical characters) of stromatolites could be entirely abiotic (non-living) in origin (Nature, Vol 383, No 6599). Therefore, if such fossils are studied, they could lead to formulation of wrong evolutionary concepts.

The discovery of a 3.5 billion-year-old stromatolite from Australia had assumed prominence as part of the evidence of earliest life on Earth. But the extent to which they are biogenic