Naica's crystal caves hold long-dormant life

BBC ^ | 02/18/2017 | Jonathan Amos

[BenLurkin]

Scientists have extracted long-dormant microbes from inside the famous giant crystals of the Naica mountain caves in Mexico - and revived them.

The organisms were likely to have been encased in the striking shafts of gypsum at least 10,000 years ago, and possibly up to 50,000 years ago.

It is another demonstration of the ability of life to adapt and cope in the most hostile of environments.

"Other people have made longer-term claims for the antiquity of organisms that were still alive, but in this case these organisms are all very extraordinary - they are not very closely related to anything in the known genetic databases," said Dr Penelope Boston.

The new director of Nasa's Astrobiology Institute in Moffett Field, California, described her findings here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

...

These outsized needles of gypsum have grown over millions of years. They are not perfect. In places they have defects - small voids where fluids have collected and become encased.

Using sterile tools, Dr Boston and colleagues opened these inclusions and sampled their contents.

Not only did they detect the presence of bacteria and archaea, but they were able also to re-animate these organisms in the lab.

...

"The astrobiological link is obvious in that any extremophile system that we're studying allows us to push the envelope of life further on Earth, and we add it to this atlas of possibilities that we can apply to different planetary settings."

Many scientists suspect that if life does exist elsewhere in the Solar System, it is most likely to be underground, chemosynthesising like the microbes of Naica.

[Oatka]

Scientists have extracted long-dormant microbes from inside the famous giant crystals of the Naica mountain caves in Mexico - and revived them.

The Andromeda Strain

[HotHunt]

These caves are under a silver mine in Mexico.

The heat is so intense in the caves where the crystals are located, that even with the protective suits on, scientists can only stay in the cave for minutes at a time.

The documentary you mentioned was very interesting. These gigantic crystals are unique.

Can you imagine the first human who found these huge crystals? Unbelievable.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 2/18/2017. Thanks BenLurkin.

Of course, this dunce isn't aware of 99% of what goes on south of the US border:

• Ocasio-Cortez warns that melting glaciers could release ancient diseases (We're all gonna die alert)

[tet68]

Awesome.
I remember crawling 1000ft over rimstone dams on my
belly just to see a 6” Gypsum flower in 1963.
I was a lot smaller then.

[sauropod]

They’re flooded now.

I’m sorry I never got to visit them.