Life has intimately interacted with inanimate world since its appearance in the planet Earth some 3.8 billion years ago.This interplay constitutes the basis of the integration between life science and Earth Science and finally leads to the naissance of the cross-discipline geobiology,which parallels geophysics and geochemistry.Nowadays geobiological research comprises two campaigns.On the one hand,biologists find many metabolic pathways that are actively altering the Earths surface environment in every imaginable habitat,and investigate the mechanisms of each metabolism in molecular level.On the other hand,geologists are searching biological information from rocks and sediments,and deciphering the past biological activities and their geologicalconsequences.