Fossil stromatolites enclosing structurally preserved land plant remains have rarely been documented and studied in detail. Permineralized woody Tylodendron sp. conifer axes (slender stems, branches) from a lacustrine sedimentary sequence in the lower Permian fossil Lagerstätte of Manebach (Thuringian-Forest Basin, central Germany) are frequently surrounded by stromatolites that consist of successive, usually asymmetrical microbial layers. The stromatolites show various growth forms ranging from laminar to palisadic. They developed in stagnant water from microbial overgrowth dominated by slender, unbranched sessile cyanobacterial filaments aligned vertically into tufts or turf-like stands. Interspersed among the filaments were other filamentous and coccoid microorganisms. Preservation of the Tylodendron axes can be exquisite and sometimes even includes extraxylary tissues containing remains of fungi, suggesting that stromatolite formation began soon after the axes had entered the water and were perhaps even conducive to their preservation. Structurally similar fossil microbialitic structures from elsewhere likewise demonstrate that they were effective in preserving plant morphology. The Manebach stromatolites and the plant remains they contain contribute to a more accurate understanding of the complex biological processes in late Paleozoic lake ecosystems.

Miocene thin-bedded turbidites from Tierra del Fuego record scarce graphoglyptids and two unusual ichnoguilds composed of diminutive elite trace fossils. The first, a monoichnospecific Cylindrichnus ichnoguild, consists of crowded, post-depositional burrows formed in surface sediments during the final phase of turbidite deposition. The second, a pre-depositional Helminthopsis ichnoguild, consists of dense aggregates of simple trails, mainly Helminthopsis and Helminthoidichnites, occupying a very shallow tier in organic-rich mud covering the sea floor prior to turbidite deposition. The trace makers of Cylindrichnus were opportunistic suspension/detritus feeding organisms, probably polychaetes, which bloomed during high flux of labile organic matter brought to internal and external levees by turbidity currents. The trace makers of Helminthopsis and Helminthoidichnites were probably nematodes that grazed on organic-rich muddy sediments with abundant disseminated pyrite associated with Kinneyia-like and other problematic wrinkle structures, suggesting sulfur-cycling chemosynthetic microbial communities originated during interturbidite phases. The rhythmical alternation of the Cylindrichnus and Helminthopsis ichnoguilds clearly differentiate the thin-bedded turbidites of the Viamonte Formation from channel-levee complexes elsewhere, stressing the point that ichnoassemblages reflect sets of environmental parameters and not necessarily particular depositional settings.