Scientists with the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville, Virginia have confirmed the discovery of a fossil called a stromatolite.
The fossil was found at the Boxley Blue Ridge Quarry near Blue Ridge, Virginia. The museum says that fragments and sections of stromatolites are fairly common, but it is very rare for a whole stromatolite "head" to be collected intact.
This specimen is the first-ever intact stromatolite head found in Virginia, and is one of the largest complete "heads" in the word.
While on collecting trip to the quarry I was able to view the fossil on June 28, 2008. The stromatolite fossil weighs approximately 4,000 pounds and is over 5 feet in diameter.
“Stromatolites . . . are layered accretionary structures [that] formed in shallow water by the trapping, binding and cementation of sedimentary grains by biofilms of microorganisms, especially cyanobacteria (commonly known as blue-green algae)” (Wikipedia, 2009).
