Right at the beginning of the ROM Dawn Of Life exhibit, there are some beautiful specimens of stromatolites. Very early in the Earth’s history, tiny organisms were covered by sand and mud, and they poked through again to reach sunlight. This process was repeated countless times, and the result was a rock-like formation – a stromatolite. One important outcome was the generation of oxygen, which became the critical factor in the evolution of more complex life forms on Earth. As I contemplated the specimens at the ROM, I felt echoes of subtle life energies. The notion of dynamic activities in the sedimentary rocks in our environment today became a little easier to imagine.
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