Stromatolites: why do we care?

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the Diffusion Entropy (DE) method effectively distinguishes biotic stromatolite samples from abiotic ones by analyzing their scaling indices, confirming previous compression method results.

Contribution

The study introduces a two-dimensional DE analysis for stromatolites and compares it with a compression method, providing a new approach to differentiate biotic from abiotic samples.

Findings

DE scaling index is higher for biotic stromatolite samples.

DE analysis confirms previous compression method results.

Two different procedures yield consistent results.

Abstract

We apply the method of Diffusion Entropy (DE) to the study of stromatolites by means of a two-dimensional procedure that makes it possible for us to compare the DE analysis to the results of a compression method. As done with the compression method, we analyze two pairs of samples, one biotic and the other a-biotic. Each pair consists of a target, the putative stromatolite sample, and of its surrounding matrix. We use two different procedures, referring to single colors and to a color combination, respectively. We apply the DE method to both procedures and we find the same result, this being that the scaling index of the time series stemming from the biotic target yields a scaling index larger than the scaling indices of the other three curves. We argue that the DE analysis confirms the results of the compression method.