Bacteria found under a glacier in Antarctica. No oxygen, no light, and very cold... so how does life survive down there?
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...16?hub=SciTech
Quote:
John Priscu, of Montana State University, said that because the ecosystem has been isolated for so long in extreme conditions, it could help explain how life might exist on other planets, and serve as a model for how life can exist under ice.
The researchers believe the pool of water was trapped about 1.5 million years ago when the glacier moved over a lake. It doesn't freeze because it is four times saltier than the ocean.
The pool is so deep under the ice and so far back from the edge that the researchers couldn't drill down to it, but they were able to collect some of the outflow for testing.
"When I started running the chemical analysis on it, there was no oxygen," Mikucki said. "That was when this got really interesting, it was a real 'eureka' moment."
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