For two billion years, stromatolites ruled our planet unchallenged.

在 20 亿年间，叠层争议地统治着我们的星球。

This is a piece of a living stromatolite, that I've just chopped.

这是一块活的叠层，我刚刚把它切碎。

Now, what probably looks like a bunch of wrinkly old rocks are actually stromatolites.

现在，能看起来像一堆皱巴巴的古老岩实际上是叠层。

And their fossils are often preserved as layered rock structures, called stromatolites.

它们的化通常保存层状岩结构，称叠层。

The wavy shapes and textures of certain layers looked similar to other stromatolites.

某些层的波浪状和纹理看起来与其他叠层相似。

These limestone-like carbonates are known on Earth to preserve stromatolites, mounds formed by bacterial growth.

这些类似灰的碳酸盐在地球上以保存叠层而闻名，叠层是由细菌生长的土丘。

The fossils are called stromatolites, and they’re made up of layers of sediment formed by growing mats of bacteria.

这些化被称叠层，它们由生长的细菌的沉积物层组。

In 2016, researchers found signs of some really old fossils called stromatolites, which are sediment layers made by bacterial mats.

2016 年，研究人员发现了一些名叠层的古老化的迹象，这些化是由细菌的沉积层。

And billions of years ago, these stromatolites, ancient communities of photosynthetic bacteria that are equal parts biology and geology, may have exhaled the first breaths of life-giving oxygen.

数十亿年前的这些叠层，古老的光合细菌群落，它们在生物学和地质学中是一样的部分，能已经呼出了第一口提供生命的氧气。

The shape and texture of certain layers in the rocks, plus their chemical composition, are clues that there are stromatolites made by microbes inside the rocks.

岩中某些层的状和质地，加上它们的化学分， 是岩内部存在由微生物的叠层的线索。

Layers of sediment can also just build up over time, but the shape and chemical signatures in a stromatolite can reveal if it was formed by microbes.

随着时间的推移， 沉积物层也会不断堆积，但叠层的状和化学特征以揭示它是否是由微生物的。

These calcareous structures — the result of what was a brand-new process, using solar radiation as a source of energy — are stromatolites, constructed by complex microbial communities, in particular cyanobacteria.

这些钙质结构是叠层，由复杂的微生物群落构，特别是蓝藻细菌。这是一个全新的过程，利用太阳辐射作能量来源。

In a paper published this week, Australian researchers found signs of stromatolites in 3.7 billion year old rocks in Greenland – some of the oldest rocks anywhere on Earth.

在本周发表的一篇论文中，澳大利亚研究人员在格陵兰岛 37 亿年前的岩中发现了叠层的迹象， 这些岩是地球上任何地方最古老的岩之一。

But life was to face a crisis, a crisis that would finally end the long reign of the stromatolites and lead to the beginning of a new era in the story of life on Earth.

但生命将面临一场危机，这场危机最终结束了叠层的长期统治，并开启地球生命故事的新纪元。