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Most of Earth covered with life powered on hydrogen. Living Rocks?
JoNova ^ | March 19th, 2013 | joanne

Posted on 03/20/2013 8:38:08 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach

File this under: What don’t we know?

We just discovered slice “2″ is alive.  |1 – Continental crust | 2 -Oceanic crust | 3 – Upper Mantle | 4 – Lower Mantle | 5 – Outer Core | 6 – Inner Core | Image Credit: Dake

You might have thought that photosynthetic life forms had the Earth covered, but according to some researchers the largest ecosystem on Earth was just discovered and announced last Thursday, and it’s powered by hydrogen, not photosynthesis.

The Oceanic Crust is the rocky hard part under the mud that lies under the ocean. It covers 60% of the planet and it’s 10km thick. (The oceans themselves are a paltry 4km deep on average.) We’ve known for years that the isolated hot springs in trenches held life. But who thought that all the hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of basalt rock in between had its own life cycle? Last week a group from the Center for Geomicrobiology at Aarhus University, Denmark announced that they had drilled through crust that was 2.5km underwater and 55 km away from anything that mattered. They found life in the basalt.

“We’re providing the first direct evidence of life in the deeply buried oceanic crust. Our findings suggest that this spatially vast ecosystem is largely supported by chemosynthesis,” says Dr Lever, at the time a PhD student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, and now a scientist at the Center for Geomicrobiology at Aarhus University, Denmark.

The microorganisms we found are native to basalt,” explains Dr Lever.

It’s a hydrogen powered life

Energy from reduced iron

We have learned that sunlight is a prerequisite for life on Earth. Photosynthetic organisms use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into organic material that makes up the foundation of Earth’s food chains. Life in the porous rock material in the oceanic crust is fundamentally different. Energy — and therefore life’s driving force — derives from geochemical processes.

“There are small veins in the basaltic oceanic crust and water runs through them. The water probably reacts with reduced iron compounds, such as olivine, in the basalt and releases hydrogen. Microorganisms use the hydrogen as a source of energy to convert carbon dioxide into organic material,” explains Dr Lever. “So far, evidence for life deep within oceanic crust was based on chemical and textural signatures in rocks, but direct proof was lacking,” adds Dr Olivier Rouxel of the French IFREMER institute.

It’s not just hydrogen-powered, there’s sulphate, methane, and carbon fermentation too

Even though this enormous ecosystem is probably mainly based on hydrogen, several different forms of life are found here. The hydrogen-oxidising microorganisms create organic material that forms the basis for other microorganisms in the basalt. Some organisms get their energy by producing methane or by reducing sulphate, while others get energy by breaking down organic carbon by means of fermentation.

These bugs are not the same ones in the sea water. There is no oxygen, and while they are in old rocks, they are not fossils

Dr Lever’s basalt is 3.5 million years old, but laboratory cultures show that the DNA belonging to these organisms is not fossil. “It all began when I extracted DNA from the rock samples we had brought up. To my great surprise, I identified genes that are found in methane-producing microorganisms. We subsequently analysed the chemical signatures in the rock material, and our work with carbon isotopes provided clear evidence that the organic material did not derive from dead plankton introduced by seawater, but was formed within the oceanic crust. In addition, sulphur isotopes showed us that microbial cycling of sulphur had taken place in the same rocks. These could all have been fossil signatures of life, but we cultured microorganisms from basalt rocks in the laboratory and were able to measure microbial methane production,” explains Dr Lever. Dr Jeff Alt of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor adds that “Our work proves that microbes play an important role in basalt chemistry, and thereby influence ocean chemistry.”

I’m sure the U.N. will be getting a team over there next week… I don’t think they’ve got these rocks in their models.

[Science Daily]


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: abiogenic; catastrophism; cryptobiology; cryptozoology; hydrogean; microbiology; oceabcrustlife; oceanbottomlife; oceanecosystem; thomasgold
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1 posted on 03/20/2013 8:38:08 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
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To: SunkenCiv; Marine_Uncle; Fred Nerks; Carry_Okie; blam; Lorianne; Twotone; bigbob; NormsRevenge; ...

This is amazing.


2 posted on 03/20/2013 8:45:06 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach ((The Global Warming Hoax was a Criminal Act....where is Al Gore?))
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Oil is a renewable resource. It’s not ancient. It’s made every day.


3 posted on 03/20/2013 8:46:16 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (The ballot box is a sham. Nothing will change until after the war.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
I feel a song coming on ... not sure why - I guess the Woo Hoo, and sorry for the ad!
4 posted on 03/20/2013 8:47:06 PM PDT by dr_lew
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To: All
From the comments:

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janama

March 19, 2013 at 3:55 am · Reply

The late Lance Endersbee believed that water was created in the mantel, some believe oil is similarly created, we know nothing about our planet and how it works. It’s still one of the greatest mysteries on earth.

5 posted on 03/20/2013 8:50:43 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach ((The Global Warming Hoax was a Criminal Act....where is Al Gore?))
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Lets see how the peer reviews if ever come forth.


6 posted on 03/20/2013 8:55:01 PM PDT by Marine_Uncle (Galt level is not far away......)
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To: ClearCase_guy
This comment is for you.....:

From the comments to the article:

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Siliggy

March 19, 2013 at 5:24 am · Reply

Photosynthesis and Chemosynthesis both are endothermic storage of heat as energy. So does more CO2 cause cooling? Also does getting oil out of the way help this life to cool the planet? Does this mean that in the right conditions oil could be quickly renewable without being abiotically produced?
So many questions for the “settled science”.

7 posted on 03/20/2013 8:55:30 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach ((The Global Warming Hoax was a Criminal Act....where is Al Gore?))
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Until we know for sure, I suggest we continue to use level one.

It sure beats the pixie dust at level.


8 posted on 03/20/2013 8:56:17 PM PDT by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: Marine_Uncle

See #7.


9 posted on 03/20/2013 8:56:41 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach ((The Global Warming Hoax was a Criminal Act....where is Al Gore?))
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Blah, blah, blah... more government grants.

Any idiot who paid attention in high school biology knows that life can and probably does occur anywhere there is a large and stable gradient in the oxidation reduction potential.

They’ll probably give these bozos a Nobel Prize or something.


10 posted on 03/20/2013 8:59:41 PM PDT by Born to Conserve
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To: All
More :

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Gbees

March 19, 2013 at 6:13 am · Reply

Siliggy, if more CO2 means more cooling does that mean that we’ll see a change of story from our warmists? You know, CAGC (catastrophic anthropogenic global cooling) and see policies to reduce CO2 to avoid freezing?

11 posted on 03/20/2013 8:59:44 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach ((The Global Warming Hoax was a Criminal Act....where is Al Gore?))
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

>> “storage of heat as energy” <<

.
Word games?

Or did he mean chemical potential energy?


12 posted on 03/20/2013 9:01:36 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
RE: "So many questions for the “settled science”.

I'm glad I'm at the point I don't give a shit.
13 posted on 03/20/2013 9:04:23 PM PDT by Marine_Uncle (Galt level is not far away......)
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To: All
More..... something of a bit of skeptical question:

**********************************EXCERPT***********************************

DavidH

March 19, 2013 at 7:27 am · Reply

I’m going to nit-pick and point out that 3.5 billion years is extraordinarily old for oceanic crust. Wikipedia says typically 200 million years … OK, I know it’s not always a reliable source but I’ve read the same number in various books. Oceanic crust is continuously “recycled” by subduction in the course of tectonic plate activity so it’s on average way younger than continental crust. If this bit of oceanic basalt was so old, it’s not typical of most oceanic basalt. Does the study extrapolate from this to most or all the ocean crust and if, so how do they justify it?

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, no I’m not a warmist troll. Just taking a sceptical look at the information given.

14 posted on 03/20/2013 9:05:05 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach ((The Global Warming Hoax was a Criminal Act....where is Al Gore?))
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To: editor-surveyor

I didn’t understand that either.


15 posted on 03/20/2013 9:09:42 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach ((The Global Warming Hoax was a Criminal Act....where is Al Gore?))
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To: ClearCase_guy

So the Russians were correct afterall.


16 posted on 03/20/2013 9:28:46 PM PDT by Norm Lenhart
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
The Deep Hot Biosphere
17 posted on 03/20/2013 9:41:11 PM PDT by redhead (NO GROUND TO THE DEVIL! Use Weaponized Prayer)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

The earth is a hydrocarbon still. Always has been.


18 posted on 03/20/2013 9:54:47 PM PDT by DonnerT (After all is said and done, it is God's Will that will be done.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

You’re not nit picking at all. The only way I could figure to find oceanic basalt that old is if it became part of a very old crust and thus never went back into the mantel. Help me out if there is another way.


19 posted on 03/20/2013 10:03:38 PM PDT by JimSEA
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

The two most abundant elements in the universe is Hydrogen and Stupidity.

And Obama is trying to cut back on the Hydrogen.


20 posted on 03/20/2013 10:09:17 PM PDT by Hardraade (http://junipersec.wordpress.com (Vendetta))
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