Lake Thetis

Lake Thetis is situated on the outskirts of Cervantes.  This saline lake is unique because of its living fossils!  It has several stromatolites on its shores.  A stromatolite is a solid structure created by single-celled microbes called cyanobacteria(blue-green algae).  This algae forms colonies and traps sediment with their sticky surface coatings.  The trapped sediment reacts to calcium carbonate in the water to form limestone.  The lake is one of only a few places in the world with living marine stromatolites.  The stromatolites exhibit  unusual columnar branching.  These narrow, closely spaced and almost parallel columns are extremely rare in modern stromatolites.