Feedbacks between flow, sediment motion and microbial growth on sand bars initiate and shape elongated stromatolite mounds

•Microbial mats macroscopic spatial patterns recreated experimentally.•Microbial mats patterns controlled by hydrodynamic and sediment transport.•Quantitative explanation of elongated stromatolite morphology.

Elongated stromatolites are often used as indicators of current direction and shoreline orientation, especially in paleoenvironmental reconstructions. However, mechanisms that create shore-parallel, m-scale elongated stromatolite mounds in carbonate sand are not well understood. We propose that this geometry is initiated by microbial growth on the parts of sand bars that experience low wave-induced bed shear stresses. We test this idea by growing microbial mats on carbonate sand bars in a laboratory wave tank. Cyanobacterial mats grow on the bar runnels, where sediment motion is negligible, but are absent from the bar ridges, where the waves generate migrating ripples. When microbially-promoted lithification reinforces and preserves this initial pattern, elongated stromatolites should initiate in the runnels of sand bars, with long wavelengths (5-100 m) and small width-to-wavelength ratios (∼0.3). These dimensions are consistent with modern shore-parallel stromatolites in Hamelin Pool, Western Australia, and with patterns of microbial colonization in other sandy sediments. This model of elongated stromatolite mounds can inform paleoenvironmental reconstructions by clarifying and quantifying feedbacks among waves, sediment transport and microbial growth.