Stromatolites of Shark Bay, Western AustraliaShark Bay is one of the most famous living, modern "fossil" record sites in the world. The peninsula next to Shark Bay is the western most part of Australia... the little bay that occurs about half way up the West coast... about a nine hour drive North from Perth.
Stromatolites are layered bio-chemical structures formed in shallow water by bacteria that traps, binds and cements sediment grains. Think of them as big cyanobacteria colonies or microbial mats. Bits of debris get stuck to the mats and the mats grow up and around them, cementing the debris into, in this case, rock hard towers. 
Stromatolites in the rock record near Gaspe, Quebec.
Imagine taking a slice across the top of the Shark Bay stromatolites. That's what you are seeing here. This particular image was taken on a field trip to the layered bio-chemical accretionary structures formed in shallow water by the trapping, binding and cementation of sedimentary grains by biofilms (microbial mats) of microorganisms, especially Gaspé Penninsula. Stromatolites can be found in rock as old as 3.5 billion years old, amongst the oldest known fossils. This particular rock is Devonian in age (416 to 360 million years) ago. When these critters were growing, the area from Southern Quebec down through Texas was a very quiet and protected marine environment. It was being slowly filled by the shales which are being exploited today. GoogleEarth location: 26°23'41.68" S 114°09'12.17" E |
Why were we there?"James... let's do a road trip this weekend."
We were in Perth working on risk registers and helping a company put together a probabilistic, uncertainty embracing cost and schedule forecast for a very large LNG facility. The client was trying to figure out why they were always behind schedule and over budget. We started out by taking a look at the risk register, immediately recognizing two things, that the individual activities had significant correlation and dependency due to common causes or threats, and that the forecasts were objectives and not predictions of what was likely to occur. We conducted a series of expert interviews across the operation collecting info on what the leads of the major activity areas saw as the possible outcomes. We then helped them describe the range of possible results, the major influences of cost and schedule, and the critical benchmark points along the way. James replied, "Sure, I'm up for that." So, we booked a car for late Friday afternoon. We made it as far as Geraldton, a little more than half way to Shark Bay where we crashed for the night in a campground. The next morning we were up at dawn and on the road. The sparsely vegetated countryside was a strange counterpoint to the lushness of the Perth area. We reached the Southern end of Shark Bay after stopping for fuel and a couple of the worst gas station sausage rolls ever. It was about 10 am. Happily, it was also low tide and the stromatolites were nicely visible. Shark Bay is a World Heritage Site, and deservedly so. If you plan to go there, drive. Yes, you can fly to Denham, the town on the peninsula, but the airport is out of town and you will need a car to get around to the plentiful activities in the area. We compiled all of the range estimates and included the major correlations and dependencies within the risk register, created a critical path assessment which showed not only the new estimated cost and schedule results. We also gave an indication of the priority near-critical-path elements that would also require attention and avoidance of delay threat. |
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