tour in Cuatrocienegas Coahuila

[jaime1]

this.is POZA AZUL have millions yeard is unique in the world.

[homerboy2u]

Dang that water is clear!

  According to the NASA guys, it is supposed to be the clearest water in the world, and you can´t bathe in it. That is because of the stromatolites living there.

 I wanted to take a dip  

[SHANEA]

That is because of the stromatolites living there.

 I wanted to takwe a dip  

stro•mat•o•lite

Pronunciation: (strō-mat'l-īt"), [key]
—n. Geol.
a laminated calcareous fossil structure built by marine algae and having a rounded or columnar form.  http://www.infoplease.com/ipd/A0674920.html

Stromatolites are large, often dome shaped, colonies of micro-organisms. They exist today in only a few locations (the best known being Shark Bay, Australia), but prior to 1 billion years ago they were widespread on our planet. They can be fossilized because they include substantial amounts of silicates that are mixed in with the living biofilms, and it is primarily this sandy silicate material that survives in ancient fossils. Stromatolites represented a prominent part of the Earth's biosphere before the emergence of multicelled plants and animals, and presumably they contributed significantly to the generation of the oxygen that eventually led to the oxidation of the atmosphere. Today such biofilms are rare because they provide food for grazing fish and crustaceans, and have not developed effective means of self-defense.

http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/astrobio/astrobio_detail.cfm?ID=1991

[jaime1]

es correcto. son microorganismos que sobrevivieron desde la epoca de los dinosaurios.

[jaime1]

mesquitez river

[jaime1]

more pictures

[jaime1]

cuatrocienegas coahuila mexico

[mbent]

I've always wanted to see these! They are rare fresh water stromatolites...som e of the most FAMOUS stromatolites.. in the geologic world!!! thanks for sharing great photos!

[mbent]

Here is some more if you can stand it...on stromatolites from my old carbonate book Carbonate Sediments and Their Diagenesis by Bathurst...it's an oldie but I imagine it still holds up since he was kind of the king of carbonates....I've studied carbonates-recent and ancient in surface, subsurface, and I finally got to start diving and see the ultimate ...the living reef...a few years ago..which is addictive, but I have dreams of being able to see these babies......never seen them before (except in the ancient)...here's a little more info...I think they're so cool..."Carbonate algal stromatolites are laminar deposits of an earthy, leathery-looking or jelly-like material, commonly green, brown or black on the upper surface, which tend to grow either subaerially in moist places, or under water, in warm climates. Their growth is controlled dominantly by a dynamic relation between living blue-green algae, forming an algal-mat, and the entrapment and precipitation of CaCO3. Mats, with or without significant sediment content, are usually to be found on the floors of fresh-water or bracksih lakes or at their wet margins, in brackish pools in the sawgrass swamps of the Everglades, in rocky inter-tidal pools along the coast, on supratidal aragonite muds or on the quieter submarine, subtidal sediment floors. It is characteristic of some of these growths that they can withstand prolonged drought or subaerial exposure". It is basically layers of colonies of algae living in and on sediment which traps more sediment on their filaments 'by virtue of the sticky mucilaginous sheath' which builds up the funky, undulating layers.  The sedimentation is interrupted by erosion which causes modification of the growth rates. Exposed mud cracks curl up which, eventually result in the discontinuities that result in the 'separate dome-shaped algal-heads or polygons' which is what you are seeing in these photos!!! Algal mounds! Anyway, the photos are exquisite! Also, I thought there were some rare fish species that live in that water...or something like that....

[BigBendHiker]

Thanks for posting the pictures! The water is beautiful. I googled stromatolites and here is the wikipedia article.  It mentions Cuatrocinegas Coahuila.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromatolite


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuatro_Ci%C3%A9negas


BBH

[mbent]

Very cool info and I'm so glad these are being protected!

[homerboy2u]

I have not been to Cuatrocienegas as of yet. I am waiting for better weather to go and explore , since it is out in the desert and things are just too hot there, even hotter than in here.

  I know there are many scientists studying many things of this unique ecosystem that i ignore. 01Viper was there, this past winter and thru his pictures got me excited to schedule a visit.

 i wish i could contrubute some more, but looks as though the expert landed on our webpage, Mbent, so it would not hurt to hear some more from you. Ofcourse , should you be interested in visiting the area, you could tag along with my group, but?......we are not going to take the easy road, let me tell you.

Homero

[jaime1]

Algun dia podras hacerlo homero.  Saludos.

[mbent]

I wish I was an expert but I would definitely go there......to see them in person bc I would, obviously have a lot to learn about them.....it's always so much better to see things in the modern-living version in order to compare to the ancient....my bf from college is also a geo major from SRSU and she's been and she loved it! Homerboy! You need to arrange a field trip...........but yeah i got to heal up from my stupid operation and stuff...no rough roads for me yet....but pretty soon.......so winter would be good!!???

[homerboy2u]

so winter would be good!!???

 Definitely!!!!!...we can work something good for Octuber and on, when the weather starts to change for the better...