Microscopic bacterial life forms found in samples of rocks taken from one and a half miles below the ocean floor might be up to 100 million years old.
Microscopic bacterial life forms found in rock samples that were one and a half miles under the ocean floor might be up to 100 million years old.
According to researchers at the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, the microbes that live far below the surface of the Earth are slow to reproduce, and live in relatively small populations of about one thousand microbes in the equivalent of a teaspoon sized rock.
There would reportedly be billions or trillions of bacteria living in the same teaspoon size of soil on the surface of the Earth.
Doctor Beth Orcutt, from the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine, said: “It's really hard to understand how the microbes have enough energy to live and how incredibly slowly they are growing. The other question we have is that even though we are finding cells, is it really true to call it alive when it's doubling every thousands of years? It's almost like a zombie state.”
Although they are slow moving and microscopic, the carbon using activity of these organisms deep underground could have an effect on the carbon cycle of Earth, which influences carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.
