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To: furball4paws
It's not possible to estimate how much primary productivity on Earth is produced by non-sunlight using autotrophs. It is certainly small, but also certainly significant.

Here's a website with an estimate that maybe 10% of life on earth is bacteria in rock strata kilometers below the ocean floor. That was the result of a quick search. Maybe not authoritative.

8 posted on 07/11/2005 8:51:51 AM PDT by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. The List-O-Links is at my homepage.)
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To: PatrickHenry

But these are certainly not all autotrophic. There's a lot of organic stuff in waters, sometimes thousands of ppm, especially in oil fields, to feed on. I emailed Blankenship, who BTW is a good, sound scientist, to ask if he knows if there are volatile fatty acids in the water from these vents. No answer so far.


10 posted on 07/11/2005 9:00:26 AM PDT by furball4paws (One of the last Evil Geniuses, or the first of their return.)
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