Buried Since the Jurassic Era, Ocean Microbes Are Still 'Barely Alive'
Opening the Sediment Core Hans Røy opens a sediment core. The mud in the opening of this core is from the last ice age 10,000 years ago. The mud sampled from the Knorr was from the time when dinosaurs walked the earth. Bo Barker Jørgensen/© Science/AAAS With no meal for 86 million years, and barely enough oxygen to sustain metabolism, can a single-celled organism really be considered alive? Yes, but only just, according to a new study. A microbial community buried under the ocean floor since the mid-Jurassic era is still hanging on. Their tenacity could pose some interesting questions for the hunt for alien life. Plenty of microbes live beneath ocean sediments - about 90 percent of the planet's unicellular organisms are found there, and they've long been subjects of study among biologists interested in extreme environments. Hans Røy and colleagues wanted to dig even deeper to examine the...