中文摘要：

在地球早期生命演化过程中,叠层石-微生物席生态系统主宰地球海洋近30亿年,叠层石作为微生物岩,是一种特殊的生物沉积构造,记录了大量的微生物、环境、地球化学和地球物理等方面的信息。叠层石研究经历了迂回曲折的道路,本文在综述国内外叠层石研究现状的基础上,重点阐述了中国叠层石研究取得的主要成绩和存在的不足,并从多学科交叉融合的角度,结合上下地层岩相变化,提出叠层石研究的新方法和新思路,为我国今后叠层石的研究和古环境的重建提供参考。

英文摘要：

Stromatolites-microbial mats of the ecological system once dominated the oceans nearly 3 billion years in the early evolutionary processes of the Earth.As one of the microbialite,stromatolites are a special kind of biogenic sedimentary structures,which recorded a large number of microbial,environmental,geochemical and geophysical information.The present paper gives a systematic description of the progress and problems in the research of stromatolites especially in China.On the basis of the results of research from China and abroad,the authors offer some thoughts on possible future directions and problems.The highlights should be on the combination of microbialite and lithofacies variations of strata in the future research of stromatolites and reconstruction of palaeoenvironments in the future.