scientists have discovered a vast living biosphere hidden deep beneath the
earth's surface in different locations worldwide scientists are digging holes
below the surface of the earth since 2009 they've been probing the deepest
parts of our planet building a picture of the ecosystem that thrives in such
unlikely surroundings and in December 2018 they revealed some of their
incredible discoveries from the strange creatures that dwell in the depths of
the world's oceans to the countless insects and spiders that inhabit earth
our planet plays host to a dizzying array of life in fact a study published
by the journal PLoS Biology estimates that almost nine million species
currently exist here amazingly however most experts believe that we've barely
scratched the surface in terms of life on Earth and according to the same study
some 86 percent of all animals and plants that live on land remain to be
discovered along with a staggering 91 percent of those in the seas with this
in mind it's clear that our world is teeming with undiscovered life in fact
scientists identify up to 18,000 new species every year and while some of
these will be microscopic organisms invisible to the naked eye others are
more substantial and have gone undetected by humans for centuries from
the grasslands that occupy the savannas and prairies of Africa and North America
to the masked marine habitats that make up the planet's oceans many different
ecosystems thrive on earth and unsurprisingly it's in these complex
connected environments that many of the world's newest species are found
however ecosystems such as these are not the only place where new life is being
discovered and thanks to a group of scientists from around the world we're
learning more about a completely different biosphere indeed it exists
thousands of feet beneath our feet below the surface of our planet sits the
lithosphere a firm outer shell that comprises Earth's crust as well as the
upper mantle and beneath that is the asthenosphere a sticky layer where
temperatures can reach a staggering 2,336 degrees Fahrenheit according to
experts some 90% of all the carbon on our planet is located inside earth yet
scientists are only now learning just how deep carbon impacts life on the
surface the atmosphere and the oceans in 2007 Robert Hazen a senior staff
scientist at the Carnegie institutions geophysical laboratory in Washington DC
gave a talk at New York City's Century Club in it he discussed the role of
geophysics and kick-starting life on Earth and apparently his ideas impressed
Alfred P Sloan Association program director Jesse AuSable who was in the
audience at the time fortunately the Alfred P Sloan Association hands out
grants to Research Projects and with its help Heslin and his colleagues
established the deep carbon Observatory D Co in 2009 based at the Carnegie
Institution the project sought to discover how deep carbon cycles affect
our planet as a whole today the DCO Science network consists
of more than a thousand scientists from around the world around 100 different
locations worldwide representatives from over 50 countries work to further
mankind's understanding of deep carbon and with the 10-year project finishing
in 2019 some amazing results have been emerging at the DCO research is split
into four communities extreme physics and chemistry deep life deep energy and
reservoirs and fluxes using a variety of techniques each group works to build up
a better understanding of how deep carbon impacts life on this planet
meanwhile the central data science team collects information from across the
planet and converts it into vital datasets so far the project has revealed
some fascinating finds for example in the reservoirs and fluxes Department
scientists are exploring how much of Earth's carbon originates from its and
deer meanwhile the extreme physics and
chemistry community is working towards getting a better understanding of how
the element reacts to extreme conditions meanwhile the deep life community are
making some staggering discoveries apparently these scientists study life
beneath the surface of the earth exploring how this complex biosphere
interacts with our planets deep carbon cycle when the DCO first launched
scientists involved in the deep life project began their search cautiously 10
years ago we had only sampled a few sites the kinds of places we'd expect to
find life associate professor Karen Lloyd at the University of Tennessee at
Knoxville told phys.org in 2018 however over the years the DCO search is
expanded to cover hundreds of sites under a number of continents and seas
worldwide in some locations researchers drilled more than a mile and a half deep
beneath the ocean floor they also sampled microbes from bore holes and
mines more than three miles deep at these depths high temperatures intense
pressure and a lack of nutrients and light all contribute to unfavorable
conditions for life to exist however what researchers have discovered is
shocked the scientific community and changed what we know about life on Earth
for good on December 10th 2018 the annual meeting of the American
Geophysical Union began in Washington DC and to mark the occasion the DCO
announced some of its discoveries over the past nine years
apparently the deep subsurface of our planet is far more welcoming than we
might have believed amazingly scientists have found a best biosphere beneath the
earth's surface that's twice the size of the world's oceans in fact they believe
that it could extend to over half a billion cubic miles
moreover the ecosystem is thought to weigh as much as 23 billion tons for
reference that's almost 400 times heavier than all of the humans on earth
put together apparently this underground biosphere is
so populous that scientists have referred to it as a subterranean
Galapagos and just like the famously diverse islands in the Pacific Ocean
this unlikely habitat has spawned a staggering array of life in fact
researchers have discovered that all three biological domains are present in
the subsurface of the earth according to the three domain system of
classification all known life can be split into three categories bacteria
archaea and you corrode an amazingly research from the DCO suggests that a
staggering 70% of the planets bacteria and our cry live beneath the surface of
the earth it's like finding a whole new reservoir of life on Earth
Lloyd told The Guardian in 2018 we're discovering new types of life all the
time so much of life is within the earth rather than on top of it in fact it's
believed that millions of different organisms exist there mostly still
undiscovered and on categorized regardless some particularly fascinating
organisms have already emerged for example researchers were able to take a
closer look at LTR carries a barb type of archeiai that thrives in sulfur
exprience and geo Gemma burrows Lee a single-celled microbes that lives in
temperatures of 250 degrees Fahrenheit at one site researchers retrieved an
organism from a depth of one and a half miles
apparently it existed buried underground for millions of years where it may have
developed a method of energy production completely independent of the Sun
instead experts suspect that it produces methane using the gas to restore itself
rather than reproduce
in fact experts were stunned to discover that any life was present under such
limiting conditions the strangest thing for me is that some organisms can exist
for millennia Lloyd told the Guardian they're metabolically active but in
stasis with less energy than we thought possible of supporting life according to
experts much of the life discovered by the DCO exists on a completely different
time scale than that which occupies the surface of the earth and amazingly some
of them consume nothing but energy drawn from the surrounding rocks furthermore
they might only move in circumstances where the earth itself shifts such as
volcanic eruptions and earthquakes we humans orientate towards relatively
rapid processes diurnal cycles based on the Sun or lunar cycles based on the
moon but these organisms are part of a slow persistent cycle on geological
timescales Oregon State University microbial
ecologist Rick Calwell explains to the Guardian apparently various scientific
innovations have allowed scientists to dig deeper in search of life than ever
before and while new drilling techniques have allowed them to penetrate further
into the Earth's crust advances in microscopic technology have enabled them
to observe life at ever smaller levels amazingly researchers yet to reveal the
limitations of life on Earth at least as far as factors such as pressure
temperature and energy are concerned indeed there are microbes that are able
to survive in temperatures up to 250 degrees Fahrenheit for reference that's
90 degrees hotter than the temperature of a well-cooked steak currently the
record of the deepest life-form is held by an organism that was discovered over
three miles down meanwhile in marine waters the record is more than 6.5 miles
below sea level organisms at these depths are subjected to intense pressure
at least 400 times greater than that on the surface scientists believe they'll
discover organisms that can live in temperatures higher than the current
record 250 degrees Fahrenheit exploring the deep subsurface is akin to exploring
the Amazon rainforest senior scientist Mitch soakin of the Marine Biological
Laboratory Woods Hole told org there's life everywhere slogan
continued and everywhere there's an awe-inspiring abundance of unexpected
and unusual organisms he also touched on an ingredient which doesn't emit energy
or light known as dark matter and suggested that there may be far more to
it than scientists have previously believed molecular studies raise the
likelihood that microbial dark matter is much more diverse than what we currently
know it to be and the deepest branching lineages challenge the three domain
concept introduced by Carl Woese in 1977 shogunate splain perhaps we are
approaching a nexus where the earliest possible branching patterns might be
accessible through deep life investigation interestingly associate
professor Karen Lloyd at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville believes that
they may find life-forms existing in temperatures exceeding current
temperature limits there's no one I know who think that's the theoretical limit
she told the BBC in 2018 for example we know some of the problems associated
with high temperatures such as the disordering of liquids and membranes are
at least partially compensated by higher pressures and if we do discover
organisms living at even greater temperatures this could have
far-reaching implications in fact if life-forms can thrive in such extreme
conditions on earth it's possible that other planets in our solar system might
be harboring similar secrets below the surface I think it's probably reasonable
to assume that the subsurface of other planets and their moons are habitable
especially since we've seen here on earth that organisms can function far
away from the sunlight using the energy provided directly from the rocks deep
underground Calwell told the BBC meanwhile back on the Earth's surface
the deseos research has raised a number of fascinating questions for example
scientists have queried why life in the subsurface is so similar on different
continents such as South Africa and Seattle in Washington to places some
10,000 miles apart moreover researchers are questioned what
exactly deep carbon can tell us about the evolution of life specifically they
wonder whether organisms emerge in the molten depths of the earth and migrate
outwards or if they start on the surface and travel down through the planet's
crust today a research at the DCO continues with scientists drilling ever
deeper in search of life and with techniques and equipment constantly
improving it seems likely that records will continue to be broken but with so
many strange organisms already discovered what other secrets might be
lying in wait our studies of deep biosphere microbes have produced much
new knowledge but oddly realization and far greater appreciation of how much we
have yet to learn about subsurface life call well-told phys.org for now we can
only marvel at the nature of the metabolisms that allow life to survive
under the extremely impoverished and forbidding conditions for life and deep
earth