Paleobiology of the Precambrian: The Age of Blue-Green Algae

Abstract

Depending one one's predilections and the geological time in question, the Eras of the Phanerozoic can be properly (if informally) referred to as ``the age of mammals,'' ``the age of angiosperms,'' ``the age of reptiles,'' and so forth. In like manner and with equal force, the Precambrian Era, encompassing the earliest seven-eighths of geological history, can be termed ``the age of blue-green algae''; microscopic cyanophytes formed the dominant component of the earth's earliest biota (Schopf, 1970a).