Figure 4.

Comparative ancient miss, living microbial, extant and ancient raindrop impressions. A, reticulate miss surface from the Diabaig Formation at its type locality, Lower Diabaig, Scotland. B, dried extant microbial mat demonstrating reticulate texture formed by raindrops, Badachro River, Scotland. C, living tufted cyanobacterial (Lyngbya) mat at Hamlin Pool, Shark Bay, Western Australia, showing its transition to reticulate form and then to unoccupied sandy substrate. D, living algal mat demonstrating the reticulate pattern which occurs after a rain storm, Badachro River, Scotland; fully desiccated version of this mat, less than a metre distant, is seen in B. E, ancient raindrop impressions in the Stoer Group at a locality on the south shore of Enard Bay, Scotland, detail is fine enough that several impressions retain a central uplift formed during soft‐sediment impact (arrows), notice that overlapping impressions can form a reticulate pattern, similar to that seen in ancient miss in A. All scale bars represent 1 cm, except that in C which represents 2 cm. Colour online.