Others News
- Ancient deep-sea microbes found in Chinese mine
Date: 8-Aug-2007 Sources: (Xinhua Online)
BEIJING, Aug. 6 (Xinhuanet) -- Geologists have discovered 1.43 billion-year-old fossils of deep-sea microbes in ancient black smoker chimneys unearthed in a Chinese mine, providing more evidence that life may have originated on the bottom of the ocean.
The chimneys are 1 billion years older than similar fossils previously discovered and are nearly identical to the archaea- and bacteria-harboring structures found today on sea beds.
'These are remnants of the oldest living types of life forms on the planet,' said Timothy Kusky, a geologist at Saint Louis University and co-author of a new study that describes the fossils.
Kusky said that the fossils offer 'tantalizing suggestions' that life developed near deep-sea hydrothermal vents and not in shallow seas, as other evidence hints.
Black smoker chimneys develop at submerged openings in the Earth's crust that spew out mineral-rich water as hot as 752 degrees Fahrenheit (400 degrees Celsius). Bacteria that don't depend on sunlight or oxygen move into the fragile chimneys that grow around the vents and feed on the dissolved minerals.
'Some people like to call it life in extreme environments. These bacteria pretty much live on a different planet compared to conditions we live in,' Kusky told LiveScience.
The chimneys can grow more 50 feet (15 meters) tall, but retrieving even a modern chimney sample is extremely difficult, as they're fragile and can crumble when touched.
'This discovery offers scientists valuable on-land samples for geological and geo-biological research,' Kusky said, noting that some of the fossils he unearthed measure 3 feet in length.
The age and size of the chimneys, Kusky said, will help scientists understand how ancient hydrothermal vent growth and the development of life on the sea floor might be interconnected.
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