Chemical and microbial analyses found that a rare subglacial ecosystem of autotrophic bacteria metabolizing sulfate and ferric ions instead of oxygen had developed into 17 different types of microbes, evolving completely independently, isolated from the outside world and any external evolutionary processes. According to geomicrobiologist Jill Mikucki from the University of Tennessee, the lead scientist of the project, such a metabolic process had never before been observed in nature.
Separated for an adequately long enough time, the ancient microbial population evolved in an entirely different way compared to similar marine organisms. This now offers to science one concrete explanation of how other microorganisms endured when the Earth was frozen in its entirety.
The arrival of the NSF team at the “Blood Falls” of Antarctica. Photo Credit:DLR-de/Flickr CC By 2.0Not only that, the uniqueness of this evolutionary process, in a lake serving as a “time capsule” for life to evolve without oxygen for millions and millions of years, is spurring scientists to question the range of conditions in which life can exist. It also gives them a way to study the possibility of life in places such as Mars or Europa, the ice-covered moon of Jupiter, where till now the extremes of the temperatures on these planets excluded that possibility.
Linkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=88991.0