While these grey, rock-like mounds might not make the most thrilling first appearances, five minutes with Erica will have you as excited about them as she is.
“People are surprised when I tell them we wouldn’t exist without the photosynthesis that these microbial mats are responsible for. They shaped the atmosphere over billions of years of Earth's history. And understanding the past is the key to the future,” she says.
Erica is so fascinated by stromatolites that to study them, she splits her time between three corners of the world: Hamelin Pool; Washington D.C, where the Smithsonian is based; and the Atacama Desert in Chile, where another small, living stromatolite assemblage exists.
While the international travel is gruelling, Erica can’t resist the chance to work on two different stromatolite assemblages. She’s hoping that comparing them will help her to answer one of her biggest questions.
“If there’s one thing I would like to discover in my career, it would be to understand the ‘Goldilocks Solution’, where you figure out what ‘just right’ looks like for stromatolites. What conditions do they need to thrive? And what does that mean for our quest for life on other planets?”
There are plenty who might share Erica’s interest in such answers.
“If Elon Musk wants to find a way to make Mars habitable,” jokes Erica, “he really needs to pay Hamelin a visit!”