Bugs Found in 6,000-Foot-Deep Hole
Jan. 7 -- Researchers have found evidence of bacteria thriving in volcanic rocks more than 4,000 feet below the island of Hawaii, so it's possible for life to survive in conditions that are as inhospitable as Mars.
For the past 10 years Martin Fisk of Oregon State University in Corvallis has been looking for life in all the wrong places, and and he and his colleagues have found it in everything from Arctic glaciers to rocks collected from the sea floor, covered with more than two miles of water.
The latest discovery resulted from microscopic analysis of core samples from a scientific drilling project near the town of Hilo on Hawaii's Big Island. Fisk and other scientists from a wide range of disciplines and several institutions found tiny burrows carved out by microorganisms that somehow were able to find the nutrients they needed to survive within the rock itself, buried three quarters of a mile below the surface.
Life, With Little Requirements
The scientists also found DNA and RNA, the two molecules necessary for life. Both showed little or no degradation, thus demonstrating that these tiny organisms have been active recently, possibly even on the day the sample was taken from the drill hole.
"RNA especially degrades quite quickly," Fisk says. "That tells us that quite recently there was something living within the rock."
It also suggests something else. If life can survive in such a hostile environment as volcanic rock buried beneath the ground, it probably can survive on many other worlds.
"The conditions are suitable on Mars and some of the bigger moons in the solar system to support life," Fisk says. The volcanic rocks of Hawaii have all the elements necessary for life, including carbon, phosphorous and nitrogen. All that's needed is water to complete the package.
Fisk believes that far below the surface of Mars the temperature will be warm enough to melt the ice that many scientists believe is present on the Red Planet, and if there's water, there's probably going to be bacteria.
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