Life Confirmed At Extreme Depths

Posted by timothy on Monday December 9, 2002 @11:01AM from the you'll-need-a-serious-deodorant dept.

SEWilco writes "A few years ago the life forms around deep-ocean thermal vents were a surprise. Now ancient bacteria alive in rock 2 miles down have been found. The story is in the San Francisco Chronicle. It is also at Nature.Com, but that server is already rejecting connects. Other bacteria survived frozen in the pressures of an ocean 100 miles deep. This increases the known limits of where life can exist on any planet. Thomas Gold undoubtedly is not surprised at hot, deep bacteria living on hydrogen."

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Re:100 miles deep?? Explained! by John+Penix · 2002-12-09 11:14 · Score: 5, Interesting

It's important to note btw, for those who haven't caught this detail, that the subterranean bacteria in question derive energy from chemicals (chemosynthesis) rather than from sunglight (photosynthesis). This discovery in itself was breathtaking, as it means that we might have a way of "farming" even if the sky is blotted out for years, i.e. nuclear winter or ELE (extinction event like comet impact).

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