AN IMPROBABLE microbe, first found living 3.3 kilometres below South Africa, has been glimpsed half a world away in California.
Desulforudis audaxviator was found in water-filled fractures in South Africa’s deep gold mines, where it lives isolated from every other life form on Earth. Uniquely, the bacterium has evolved to do without the sun’s energy, relying only on hydrogen and sulphate.
Now, a project to map Earth’s deep biosphere has found 99 per cent identical DNA tens of thousands of kilometres away, in boreholes 900 metres deep near Death Valley in eastern California.
Duane Moser at the Desert Research…
