Unveiling mineral biosignatures by combining multiscale structure and geochemistry using SAXS/WAXS/XRF

Microbially influenced sedimentary rocks can provide valuable insights about the rise and evolution of life on Earth. Still, while mineral biosignatures are considered more resilient than organic ones, the challenge for their study relies on identifying and differentiating the biogenic features from structures generated by abiotic processes over time. This proposal aims to tackle this problem by the multiscale characterization of microbial biominerals within laminated microbialites. The relative orientation of nanostructures and crystal structure will be investigated using scanning SAXS/WAXS, and the biogeochemical context obtained with simultaneous XRF mapping. Our request is 9 shifts on ID13, 17keV and 5 microns beam for simultaneous SAXS/WAXS and XRF measurements.