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Life Found In Deepest Layer of Earth's Crust

michaelmarshall writes "For the first time, life has been found in the gabbroic layer of the crust. The new biosphere is all bacteria, as you might expect, but they are different from the bacteria in the layers above; they mostly feed on hydrocarbons that are produced by abiotic reactions deep in the crust. It could mean that similar microbes are living even deeper, perhaps even in the mantle."

3 of 335 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Living under surface by LordLimecat · · Score: 5, Informative

    You feel like financing this project? And setting up contingincies for things like "there is a leak and the pacific is starting to seep in"? And dealing with the phenomenal pressures that will be exerted?

  2. Re:Ergo oil by MozeeToby · · Score: 4, Informative

    Even if the source is from bacteria instead of peat moss (not dinosaurs), that still doesn't address the rate problem. So far as we know, oil is basically stable at the levels we drill for it, it doesn't decompose into something else over time. If that's true, that means that the deposits that we have access to took millions and millions of years to become as large as they are; in other words, oil still isn't a renewing resource, even ignoring the other long term problems involved in burning hydrocarbons for our energy production.

  3. Re:Ergo oil by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 4, Informative

    RTFA. (Or the summary, for that matter). The oil there is produced ABIOTICALLY. i.e. from chemical reactions that have nothing to do with dinosaurs, OR bacteria. That, and the bacteria found there don't produce, but eat the hydrocarbons.