The bugs beneath us.The bugs beneath us For the better part of this century, biological dogma had life clinging to a very thin skin on the surface of the earth, essentially extending only as deep as the root zone. Improved tools and techniques have pushed that limit down to 25 or 30 feet in the past decade (SN:11/26/83, p.348). Now a multi-institution effort sponsored by Du Pont Du Pont (d  pŏnt), family notable in U.S. industrial history. The Du Pont family's importance began when Eleuthère Irénée Du Pont established a gunpowder mill on the and U.S. Department of Energy has found life 850 feet below the earth's surface Noun 1. Earth's surface - the outermost level of the land or sea; "earthquakes originate far below the surface"; "three quarters of the Earth's surface is covered by water"surface . "There is life down there, and it is very diverse," says Carl Fliermans of Du Pont's Savannah River Savannah River River, eastern Georgia, U.S. Formed by the confluence of the Tugaloo and Seneca rivers at Hartwell Dam, it flows southeast to form the boundary between Georgia and South Carolina. It empties into the Atlantic Ocean at Savannah after a course of 314 mi (505 km). Laboratory in Aiken, S.C. The numbers are high enough to affect the chemistry of the environment: Some of the samples contained as many as 10 million organisms per gram of soil. But even more surprising than the high concentrations is the diversity of the microorganisms, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. David Balkwill of Florida State University Florida State University, at Tallahassee; coeducational; chartered 1851, opened 1857. Present name was adopted in 1947. Special research facilities include those in nuclear science and oceanography. in Tallahassee. Many varieties of bacteria and fungi have been seen, and there have been indications of amoeba amoeba: see ameba. amoeba One-celled protozoan that can form temporary extensions of cytoplasm (pseudopodia) in order to move about. Some amoebas are found on the bottom of freshwater streams and ponds. . And the diversity-- which doesn't appear to decrease with depth--may force a reappraisal of the environment that lies between soil and bedrock. "You expect the species to fall off as the environment becomes more severe," says Balkwill. "Maybe it's not becoming more severe." The downward extension of life may also change our ideas about the way pollutants behave in deep aquifers, say the researchers, since previous models didn't include a biological component. The deep subsurface organisms may be degrading some chemicals; if they're not already, genetic manipulation may get them to start. "[At these depths] we're talking about aquifers that are used by public for drinking water drinking water supply of water available to animals for drinking supplied via nipples, in troughs, dams, ponds and larger natural water sources; an insufficient supply leads to dehydration; it can be the source of infection, e.g. leptospirosis, salmonellosis, or of poisoning, e.g. ," says Fliermans. "Do you have organisms that are already adapted for these aquifers, and can they clean up aquifers that man has polluted?" Adds Balkwill, "if genetic engineering can get organisms that already live at those depths to digest specific chemicals, they'll have a better chance of success than if they try to make surface species adapt to a new environment as well as a new diet." |
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