Abstract: Precambrian banded iron-formations (BIPs) are chemical sediments of hydrothermal origin and consist of Fe-rich minerals with alternating layers of chert. Because microorganisms potentially played a role in their precipitation, the study of bacterial-mineral interactions at modern hydrothermal environments may provide small-scale analogues to those conditions under which they accumulated. Interestingly, microbial populations currently growing at hot springs and deep-sea vents are commonly encrusted in iron and silicate minerals. Iron biomineralization occurs either passively through interaction between the reactive sites of the cell and dissolved cationic iron from the hydrothermal fluid, or actively through chemolithotrophic iron-oxidation by bacteria such as Gallionella genera. Amorphous silica precipitates on individual bacteria through hydrogen bonding between hydroxy groups in the extracellular polymers and hydroxyl groups in dissolved silica, with some colonies becoming completely cemented together within a siliceous matrix up to several micrometers thick. Iron-silicates form due to reactions between dissolved silica and cell-bound iron. In these predominantly nonspecific processes, bacterial cells simply catalyze reactions that are rendered possible by the supersaturated conditions created by the sudden physical and chemical changes induced through venting. Diagenetic reactions, some of which are also catalyzed by microorganisms growing in the sediment, can further alter the mineralogy of these primary precipitates, leading to the formation of secondary magnetite and siderite. In this way, all of the main mineralogical components of BIFs can be associated with microbial activity.