Stromatolites: progress and problems

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.