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Biological oceanography

Life in the deepest depths

Nature Geoscience volume 8, pages 258–259 (2015)Cite this article

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Deep abyssal clay sediments in organic-poor regions of the ocean present challenging conditions for life. Techniques for identifying cells at extremely low concentrations demonstrate that aerobic microbes are found throughout these deep clays in as much of 37% of the global ocean.

The boundaries of the biosphere on Earth are fuzzy and hard to define. We don't know where the edge between where life exists and where it does not stands, and whether it is a hard boundary or a gradual transition. While we look to the heavens and await news from the Curiosity rover about the possibility of a biosphere on Mars, scientists are also probing the depths of the ocean and sea floor to determine the lower boundaries for life on this planet. Writing in Nature Geoscience, D'Hondt and colleagues1 now clarify that microbial cells and respiration could be detected all of the way through the most nutrient-poor sediment thought to exist on Earth, down to the underlying rocky basement crust below.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beth N. Orcutt is at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, 60 Bigelow Drive, PO Box 380, East Boothbay, Maine 04544, USA,

    Beth N. Orcutt

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  1. Beth N. Orcutt
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Correspondence to Beth N. Orcutt.

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Orcutt, B. Life in the deepest depths. Nature Geosci 8, 258–259 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2378

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