Life that was isolated for 2 billion years

[Eldorado]

"Two miles under a grassy plain in South Africa, pockets of water lie trapped in the rock. Scientists think the pockets might have been isolated from the surrounding environment for 2 billion years. These liquid time capsules are hot, salty, and devoid of nutrients from the surface, and they may be chemically similar to water deposits on Mars.

"Now, researchers think they may have found things living in this long-sequestered water.

"“There is a potential that [the pockets] were isolated over that long time scale. So this would be a unique opportunity to see life, essentially, evolving in a bubble,” said Devan Nisson, a graduate student at Princeton University in New Jersey, who conducted the research with colleagues, including Esta van Heerden from North-West University in South Africa."

Full report at Inside Science: https://www.insidescience.org/news/water-south-african-mine-may-contain-life-was-isolated-2-billion-years?

"Abiotic (Prebiotic?) Organic Chemistry in a Potentially Ancient Hypersaline Brine: New Insights on the Limits of Microbial Life Inhabiting 3.1 km Deep Fracture Fluid in South Africa"

Paper abstract at AGU100: https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm19/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/559378

Edited December 14, 2019 by Eldorado

[quiXilver]

What a wonderful opportunity to study potential life, that in spite of being 'part of our world', has basically develped entirely on their own.  Potentially alien of our own development... 

 

My Mind instantly says "and they opened these pockets up and discovered utterly distinct viral life... and this is how human life ended... not with a bang, but a sniffle and a whimper."

 

I wrote a short story in highschool, back in the 1980's about a dormant virus, hundreds of millions of years old, in the ice of Antarctica, that when it was re-exposed to atmosphere by core sampling of scientific explorers, became viable and wiped out 99.9% of humanity in a few short years.

[acute]

It does my head in, that there can still be unadulterated lakes of water underground, but it makes sense that there are many, as yet undiscovered.

[Piney]

1 hour ago, acute said:

It does my head in, that there can still be unadulterated lakes of water underground, but it makes sense that there are many, as yet undiscovered.

https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2013/05/17/water-trapped-for-1-5-billion-years-could-hold-ancient-life/

https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2013/11/20/salty-ancient-seawater-found-beneath-chesapeake-bay/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake_Bay_impact_crater#Formation_and_aftermath