Word.ws English Dictionary

microbialite

microbialite noun: a sedimentary or accretionary structure formed by the action of microbes.

microbialite: a sedimentary or accretionary structure formed by the action of microbes
Image: Erturac, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

microbialite (plural microbialites)

  1. A sedimentary or accretionary structure formed by the action of microbes.
    • The encrusting micrite is interpreted as a form of microbial micrite; this is termed microbialite (Burne and Moore, 1987) and in this study refers exclusively to inferred microbial carbonates.2003, Wayne M. Ahr, Permo-carboniferous Carbonate Platforms and Reefs
    • These findings suggest that the molecular differences observed between the communities may be influencing the formation of the distinctive microfabrics of the microbialite deposits.2015 July 27, J. M. Mobberley et al., “Inner workings of thrombolites: spatial gradients of metabolic activity as revealed by metatranscriptome profiling”, in Scientific Reports, volume 5, →DOI

Forms of microbialite

pluralmicrobialites

Origin of microbialite

From microbial + -ite.

Words formed from microbialite

Questions about microbialite

What does microbialite mean?
Microbialite means a sedimentary or accretionary structure formed by the action of microbes.
What part of speech is microbialite?
Microbialite is a noun.
What is the plural of microbialite?
The plural of microbialite is microbialites.

Words near microbialite in the dictionary

  1. microbial
  2. microbial clock
  3. microbial clocks
  4. microbial fuel cell
  5. microbial fuel cells
  6. microbialite
  7. microbialites
  8. microbialitic
  9. microbialization
  10. microbially
  11. microbials

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: microbialite (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “microbialite.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/microbialite. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.