Deep in the Earth's oceanic crust, scientists have found bacteria that can eat hydrocarbons and natural gas, and have the genetic potential to store carbon. Increasing levels of carbon dioxide also raise the levels of carbon dioxide in the oceans, making sea water too acidic to support healthy reefs. Now, the findings by researchers from Oregon State University reveal a possible role for the deep ocean crust in carbon dioxide storage and fixation by pumping carbon dioxide into deep subsea layers where it might be sequestered permanently. Oceanic crust covers about 70 percent of the Earth's surface and its geology has been explored, but practically nothing is known about its biology. At a site in the Atlantic Ocean near an undersea mountain, scientists from Oregon State University drilled more than 4,600 feet into rock that was both very deep and very old and found a wide range of biological activity. Microbes were degrading hydrocarbons and there were genes active in the process of fixing or converting from a gas both nitrogen and carbon.
The ocean floor is generally composed of three levels, a shallow layer of sediment, basalt formed from solidified magma and an even deeper level of basalt that cooled more slowly and is called the gabbro layer, which forms the majority of ocean crust.The gabbro layer begins under a two mile thick layer of crust. But on the Atlantis Massif, core samples were obtained from gabbro rock formations that were closer to the surface than usual because they had been uplifted and exposed by faulting. This allowed the researchers to investigate for the first time the microbiology of these rocks. The researchers also noted that methane found on Mars could be derived from geological sources, and concluded that subsurface environments on Mars where methane is produced could support bacteria like those found in this study."These findings don't offer any easy or simple solutions to some of the environmental issues that are of interest to us on Earth, such as greenhouse warming or oil spill pollution," Fisk said. "However, they do indicate there's a whole world of biological activity deep beneath the ocean that we don't know much about, and we need to study."
Link to site: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2010/2010-11-22-091.html
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