If you go outside and start digging, you will quickly find that the world under the surface is filled with life. Worms, grubs, borrowing animals, and much more all happily live some, or even all of their life beneath the surface. If you break out a microscope, you will see that there is an endless amount of tiny bacteria, fungi, algae, viruses, and other lifeforms all over the place.
Once you get deep down into the ground, however, you might expect that the presence of life would end. After all, once you get deep enough, anything that is living would have to not only find its away down past densely packed sentiment and rock, but also survive the extreme heat, high pressure, and nearly complete lack of nutrients and other things necessary for life.
This assumption, however, would be wrong.
The Deep Carbon Observatory released a study that revealed the fact that a huge number of microbes live deep within our planet. According to their estimates, about 70% of all microbes on the planet actually live deep underground.
This data is taken from a number of sources, but much of it was from an area ranging between 2.5 and 5 kilometers (1.55-3.1 miles) deep. The samples were taken from below both land and the seafloor, each boasting an environment filled with life.
Mitch Sogin is a scientist who works at the Marine Biology Laboratory Woods Hole. He is also the co-chair of Deep Carbon Observatory’s Deep Life community. He put out a statement saying:
“Exploring the deep subsurface is akin to exploring the Amazon rainforest. There is life everywhere, and everywhere there’s an awe-inspiring abundance of unexpected and unusual organisms.”
Not only have they found this abundance of life deep within the ground, they have studied it and found that the life here seems to live a long time.
Many microbial life forms have very short lifespans and are constantly dividing or reproducing, but that doesn’t seem to be the case deep underground. While it is difficult to get a precise lifespan for these entities, it could be in the millions of years.
Steven D’Hondt is a Professor of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island and after looking at these tiny lives, told IFLScience:
“We believe the community has remained there for 100 million years, with an unknown number of generations. Since the calculated energy flux for subseafloor sedimentary microbes is barely sufficient for molecular repair, the number of generations could be inconceivably low.”
Why these microbes are able to live such extraordinary lengths of time is unknown, but certainly warrants additional research.
I had no idea anything could live so deep within the Earth.
If you think that’s impressive, check out this story about a “goldmine” of lithium that was found in the U.S. that could completely change the EV battery game.