The results of the study can be a model for determining whether there was life on Mars and other planets.
Transmits UNN with reference to Nature Geoscience.
The study, led by ecologists and bioinformatics specialists from the United States and Germany, found life forms at a depth of 491 meters below the ocean floor, as well as even deeper under the land: up to 4,375 meters deep.
Scientists analyzed samples from more than 50 locations around the world, collected above and below the Earth's surface, as well as places such as caves and deep-sea hydrothermal vents that form the surface threshold.
Surface samples were collected from soil, sediments, or water columns, while subsurface samples were extracted from wells, mines, aquifers, or fracking fluid.
The discovered diversity of life forms is unexpected.
In particular, experts point out that in some underground environments, the diversity of species can even exceed that of the surface.
Although it used to be believed that the deeper you go beneath the Earth's surface, the less energy is available, and the fewer cells can survive.
Scientists especially determine the presence of microbes from the taxonomic category in the marine environment - this is the domain of archaea, which, according to the study, became even more genetically rich in depth.
The bacterial diversity in the marine interior was unexpectedly high compared to terrestrial ecosystems.
The study evaluated microbial diversity among 478 archaea and 964 bacteria, as well as 147 metagenomes from various marine and terrestrial sites.
Two separate ecosystems - surface and subsurface life
Scientists explain that life in these underground worlds takes place on a completely different time scale than on the Earth's surface.
The selective pressure is very different on land and at sea. In the absence of sunlight, energy is sparse. It has to be harvested from surrounding materials and their chemical reactions: hydrogen, methane, sulfur, serpentinization, dead (or living) bodies of neighboring microbes, and even radioactivity.
Scientists recognize that for certain environments, such as the sea surface, they had almost too much data, but for other environments, such as caves or soils, they had little or no data.
Currently, experts have a far-sighted conclusion:
If life can exist this far beneath the surface of our planet, it may be possible to find it further down. Understanding deep life on Earth could be a model for discovering whether life was on Mars and whether it survived
Recall
On the coast of California a dead belt fish, considered a mythical harbinger of natural disasters, was found. This is only the second case in three months and the 21st since 1901.
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