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Bacteria

      Bacteria (singular: bacterium, formerly also Bacteriophyta or Schizomycetes), or the eubacteria (Eubacteria) are a large domain of single-cell, prokaryote microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals. Bacteria are ubiquitous in every habitat on Earth, growing in soil, acidic hot springs, radioactive waste,water, and deep in the Earth's crust, as well as in organic matter and the live bodies of plants and animals. Once regarded as plants constituting the Class Schizomycetes, bacteria are now classified as prokaryotes. Unlike cells of animals and other eukaryotes, bacterial cells do not contain a nucleus and rarely harbour membrane-bound organelles. Although the term bacteria traditionally included all prokaryotes, the scientific classification changed after the discovery in the 1990s that prokaryotes consist of two very different groups of organisms that evolved independently from an ancient common ancestor. These evolutionary domains are called Bacteria and Archaea. The fossil remains of bacterias are very scarce; however, they represents probably the oldest fossils in the world (it is unsure, if these unicellurar remains could not represent archaeans in fact). They also formed (since early Proterozoic) and still form so called stromatolites - bodies of the cauliflower shape, formed by thin laminae or organic matter and the sediment. Cyanobacterias probably formed these structures in Proterozoic like nowaday (Shark Bay, Australia). see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria
A simplified sketch of bacteria
A simplified sketch of bacteria
A fossil stromatolites (Hoyt Limestone, kambrium, Saratoga Springs, NY)
A fossil stromatolites (Hoyt Limestone, kambrium, Saratoga Springs, NY)
Recent stromatolites. Shark Bay, Australia
Recent stromatolites. Shark Bay, Australia


 


In the Virtual Museum there are total 44 samples

Virtual museum of the Czech Geological Survey, www.geology.cz, (C) Czech Geological Survey, 2011, v.0.99 [13.12.2011]