Scientists identify vast underground ecosystem containing billions of micro-organisms

[Judi Lynn]

Global team of scientists find ecosystem below earth that is twice the size of world’s oceans

Jonathan Watts
Mon 10 Dec 2018 10.00 EST

The Earth is far more alive than previously thought, according to “deep life” studies that reveal a rich ecosystem beneath our feet that is almost twice the size of all the world’s oceans.

Despite extreme heat, no light, minuscule nutrition and intense pressure, scientists estimate this subterranean biosphere is teeming with between 15bn and 23bn tonnes of micro-organisms, hundreds of times the combined weight of every human on the planet.

Researchers at the Deep Carbon Observatory say the diversity of underworld species bears comparison to the Amazon or the Galápagos Islands, but unlike those places the environment is still largely pristine because people have yet to probe most of the subsurface.

“It’s like finding a whole new reservoir of life on Earth,” said Karen Lloyd, an associate professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. “We are discovering new types of life all the time. So much of life is within the Earth rather than on top of it.”

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/dec/10/tread-softly-because-you-tread-on-23bn-tonnes-of-micro-organisms

[matt819]

1. I'm sure we'll find a way

To destroy it. Thank you, science.

[FiveGoodMen]

2. That headline can't be right

Humans have an average of 37 or so trillion cells. Each of us.

Billions of micro-organisms wouldn't amount to much at all.

Billions of kinds would be a whole lot, but I don't think they've had time to make THAT estimate, so that can't be right either.