Natural Radioactivity Could Provide Microbes In The Deep Biosphere With Vitality

An international team of researchers from the USA and Germany has published an explanation for life in the deep biosphere in the journal Science. Using the latest technologies from biogeochemistry, molecular biology and microbiology, the scientists collected a wide range of samples from the bottom of the sea. After intensive analysis, Bo B. Jørgensen and Steven D´Hondt have now published a model with which they explain that microorganisms might survive due to the natural radioactivity deep under the sea floor (Science, 10th November 2006). It is estimated today that between 10 and 50 percent of all the biomass on the Earth is found deep below ground. Researchers working with Steven D´Hondt from the University of Rhode Island, USA, and Bo B. Jørgensen from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen have confirmed this in the course of the Ocean Drilling Program. On a voyage on the research ship "Joides Resolution" they found life up to 400 meters below the sea floor. Tests revealed that the drilled cores contained living microorganisms; contamination was ruled out. In the upper layers of sediment, the researchers counted up to 100 million unicellular organisms per millilitre; deeper, in the 35 million year old sediments on the Earth’s crust, they still found one million microorganisms. This is a puzzle for scientists: only the upper layers of these deposits are in contact with the water - so where does the energy to provide life in the depths of the sediment come from? Whole article: "http://www.sciencedaily.com/":[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061205221411.htm]

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