New Extremophiles: living in lakes under miles of ice (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, January 16, 2019, 04:13 (2139 days ago) @ David Turell

New research in deep Antarctica lakes under almost a mile of ice:

https://www.livescience.com/64501-buried-lake-antarctica-life.html?utm_source=ls-newsle...

"The dark waters of a lake deep beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet and a few hundred miles from the South Pole are teeming with bacterial life, say scientists — despite it being one of the most extreme environments on Earth.

"Expedition leader John Priscu, a professor of polar ecology at the University of Montana, told Live Science in a telephone interview from Antarctica this week that early studies of water samples taken from Lake Mercer — which is buried beneath a glacier — showed that they contained approximately 10,000 bacterial cells per milliliter.

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"The abundance of bacterial life in Lake Mercer complements the discovery of high levels of bacterial life in Antarctica's nearby subglacial Lake Whillans in 2013 — an expedition that was also led by Priscu.

"Scientists theorize that the bacteria in Lake Whillans — and possibly Lake Mercer — are surviving on deposits of carbon laid down by photosynthesizing organisms between 5000 and 10,000 years ago, when the buried lakes may have been connected to the open ocean.

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"Priscu said that the drill team bored through about 3,504 feet (1,068 meters) of ice, and the water below was a chilly 30.8 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 0.65 degrees Celsius), so that scientific researchers could take water samples and sediment cores from the lake, which was about 49 feet (15 m) deep at that spot."

Comment: Extremophiles can handle anything.