Buckingham Palace built with mineralised microbes from the Jurassic

A new study led by ANU has found that the building blocks of Buckingham Palace in London and many other iconic buildings were made by microbes that lived up to 200 million years ago during the Jurassic period. The material, known as oolitic limestone, is a popular building material around the world and is almost completely made of millimetre-sized spheres of carbonate called ooids. Co-researcher Dr Bob Burne from ANU said the new study found that ooids were made of concentric layers of mineralised microbes, debunking the popular 'snowball theory' that ooids were formed by grains rolling on the seafloor and accumulating layers of sediment. "We have proposed a radically different explanation for the origin of ooids that explains their definitive features," said Dr Burne from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences. "Our research has highlighted yet another vital role that microbes play on Earth and in our lives." Different types of oolitic limestones have formed in all geological periods and have been found around the world, including in the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, the Bahamas, China and at Shark Bay in Western Australia. Dr Burne said humans had known about and used oolitic limestone since ancient times. "Many oolitic limestones form excellent building stones, because they are strong and lightweight," he said.