Abstract
It is now understood that if life had ever erose on Mars, it might have
been preserved in the simplest form. Therefore, studying the traces of
simple life forms from the rock records of various Earth environments
and climatic conditions perhaps helps to narrow down the region of
interest while searching for life on the red planet. The Precambrian era
covered almost 80% of Earth’s geologic history, witnessed the
appearance of life on Earth and experienced prolonged extreme climatic
events that delayed biological evolution. During this extreme period,
primitive lifeforms such as microbial mats had a strong influence on
sedimentation, and they facilitated the formation of a variety of
mat-induced sedimentary structures (MISS) in siliciclastic and carbonate
sedimentary environments. In the last two decades MISS have been
identified from several Precambrian successions of India for example,
Vindhyan, Marwar, Chhattisgarh and, Cuddapah Supergroup. In this study
we tried to provide an updated catalogue based on the chronologic,
stratigraphic and paleoenvironmental occurrences of MISS from the Indian
Precambrian successions. We further explore their potential in
understanding extreme habitability, searching biomarkers and
biosignatures on Mars and propose a few potential sites for
astrobiological research.