The new understanding is that there are four major types of rocks in the Earth, and biolith is the second major rock type （生物岩是组成地球的第二大岩类）

Biopetrology
Biopetrology deepens understanding of the Earth!
生物岩石学在革新人类对地球的认识！

IBA, International Biopetrological Association, is a non-profit international academic society registered in the United States  on September 16, 2​021 to serve all scholars engaged in biopetrological research. Currently it has more than 300 members from 29 countries.

 

All IBA members can have a homepages in Chinese or English here.
The most important documents in biopetrology will be available here for researchers and students.
If you are an IBA member, and want to have a homepage here, please send your resume to biopetrology@qq.com, or IBA@biopetrology.com
Please send the documents you consider to be important to biopetrology@qq.com, so that it is put here to be shared with colleagues.
Here is the list of IBA ​members, if yo uneed, please send your resume to IBA@biopetrology.com, so that you have your own homepage in this web. 

The 1st International Biopetrological Congress was sponsored by Hebei GEO University, Institutes of Technology of Henan, and others. The next congress is scheduled in 2025, and application to be voluntary sponsors are open. Application should be to biopetrology@qq.com .


Biopetrology is an international journal founded by the International Biopetrological Association (IBA),  aiming quickly to publish innovative research results in biopetrology and related fields. It is a free open access journal—at no cost to the authors and readers.
If you have one or more publication in biopetrology or related fields, and are willing to participate in activities to promote biopetrology, and are willing to be an IBA member, please send an application email including your resume to IBA@biopetrology.com.

It is characterized by fast publication, flexible article form, protection of innovative ideas, and protection of academic freedom. 

All submissions should be to journal@biopetrology.com

Discoveries
News
The oldest stromatolites on Earth

1 .At “The 17th National Conference on Palaeogeography and Sedimentology” held in Qingdao on August 11 to 13, 2023, the Session 13, “The Formation Mechanism, Palaeogeography, and Resources and Environmental Significance of Bioliths”, was successfully organized by professors Ya-Sheng Wu and Zuo-Zhen Han. Ya-Sheng Wu and Zuo-Zhen Han made two thematic speeches on "The Application of biopetrological study in the research of Evolution of Earth System " and “Characteristics and mechanisms of microbial-induced dolomite precipitation and dolomitization”, respectively.  

(In Chinese: 在2023年8月11-13日在青岛召开的《第十七届全国古地理学及沉积学学术会议》上，吴亚生和韩作振教授等成功组织了《专题13：生物岩的形成机制、古地理及资源、环境意义》。吴亚生教授、韩作振教授分别做了《生物岩在地球系统演变研究中的应用》、《微生物诱导白云石沉淀和白云石化的特征与机制》的主题报告,其余报告题目请见会议手册。


2. Congratulations on the successful convening of Session 16, Formation, Evolution and Resource and Environmental Significance of Microbial Rocks (Microbioliths) of the 31st Annual Conference of the Paleontological Society of China in Nanjing  on November 24-27, 2023. Two graduate students of Session 16 from Hebei GEO University, Pei Renyi and Bai Rui, won the Excellent Student Presentation Award and the Excellent Poster Award, respectively. 

(In Chinese：2023年11月34-27日在江苏南京溧水恒大酒店召开的中国古生物学会第13次会员代表大会和31届学术年会上，微生物岩石学专题（S16：微生物岩的形成、演化与资源环境意义）成功举办。报告内容详见会议手册。本专题的河北地质大学裴礽奕和白蕊二位研究生分别获得大会优秀学生报告奖和大会优秀展板奖。

 

3. Ya-Sheng Wu proposed on 17 November 2023 that biolith is the second important rock constituting the Earth, and restated that the Earth is mainly made up of the four kinds of rocks: magmatic, biolithic, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. Please see: Biopetrology, 2(1): 1-45.

（In Chinese：吴亚生提出生物岩是组成地球的第二大岩，再次提出地球主要由岩浆岩、生物岩、沉积岩、变质岩这四大岩组成）


4. Ya-Sheng Wu defined 9 concepts essential to research of microbioliths and three frontiers in microbiopetrology. Please see: Biopetrology, 2(1): 1-45.

 (In Chinese: 吴亚生定义了微生物岩石研究必须掌握的9个概念，指出了微生物岩石学研究的三大前沿领域）


5. Success in determination of magnetosome fossils and variation in their content from the drilling cores of 150,000 years old oceanic deposits in a research by Liu et al.(2023). See the original paper at https://doi.org/10.1029/2023JB027741. (In Chinese: 对15万年前大洋沉积物（岩心）进行了区分岩浆岩来源的碎屑磁性矿物与来自微生物的磁性矿物（叫磁小体）、以及确定两者含量的研究，结果显示：磁小体含量在间冰期明显升高，在冰期极低。这一成果说明微生物岩石学在超微尺度研究有很大的必要性和可行性，是微生物岩石学示范性的研究成果)。

6. On November 29, 2024, Prof. Ya-Sheng WU was invited to give a speech titled "Definition of biopetrology and its developing directions”.  (In Chinese: 2024年11月29日吴亚生教授应邀在河南省古生物学会第八次会员代表大会暨学术研讨会做《生物岩石学定义和发展方向》的学术报告。报道请见https://news.hpu.edu.cn/info/1029/32790.htm。


The oldest biolith on the Earth is the microbialites (stromatolites) discovered from Isua, Greenland. They are  3.7 billion years old. see Biopetrology, 1(2): 61-69. https://biopetrology.com/eositb 

This is the outcrop of the 3.7 billion years old biolith from Isua, Greenland, first reported by Zawaski et al. (2020), who interpreted the laminated structures as tectonically-formed deformed structures, but were interpreted as stromatolites by Wu and Jiang (2022).


References:


Wu, Y.S., Jiang, H.X. 2022. Earth's earliest stromatolites in the 3.7 billion years old rock from Greenland: evidence of benthic microbes. Biopetrology, 1(2): 61-69. https://biopetrology.com/eositb 


Zawaski, M.J., Kelly, N.M., Omero, F.O., Nichols, C.I.O., Allwood, C., Mojzsis, S.J. 2020. Reappraisal of purported ca. 3.7 Ga stromatolites from the Isua Supracrustal Belt (West Greenland) from detailed chemical and structural analysis. EPSL, 545, 116409.


The oldest microbial fossils on Earth
The tube-like or filamentous fossils from  the Nuvvuagittuq belt in Quebec, Canada reported by Dodd et al. (2017) are 3,770 million and possibly 4,280 million years old, and are the  oldest known fossils on the Earth.
Thsi is a depth reconstruction of the tube-like fossils (modified from Figure 2-e of Dodd et al., (2017)

Reference:


Dodd, M., Papineau, D., Grenne, T., Slack, J.F., Rittner, M., Pirajno, F., O’Neil, J., Little, Crispin T. S. 2017. Evidence for early life in Earth’s oldest hydrothermal vent precipitates. Nature 543: 60-65.

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