Assistant producer Joanna Barwick and Cameraman Anwar Arroyo visited Little Darby Island to capture footage for the Discovery Science Channel series ‘What On Earth?’ Focusing on the contribution of tiny microbes to the formation of giant sedimentary structures such as Great Bahama Bank and vast Precambrian reefs, the film crew interviewed Amanda Oehlert and Pamela Reid. Amanda pointed out red surfaces in Pleistocene limestone on Little Darby, which contain iron from African dust. Oehlert and colleagues recently published a paper suggesting that iron from African dust may have fertilize microbial blooms, which in turn precipitated sediment to form Great Bahama Bank. Reid discussed the role of microbes in the formation of earth’s earliest reefs, stromatolites, which dominate the fossil record for 80% of Earth history. Living stromatolites are rare in the world, but are found off a beach at Little Darby Island and elsewhere in the Exuma Cays.
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