Found the most uninhabited place on the ocean
Researchers from the University of Rhode Island took samples of rock ground almost in the center of the southern Pacific Ocean at a depth of four to six kilometers, and accidentally discovered, perhaps the most uninhabited place in the world’s oceans.
Of course, the comparison in this case is not with all the Earth’s oceans and their bottom, but only with the measurement made by people earlier.
started with a small expedition, organized D’Hondt oceanographer Steven (Steven D’Hondt), writes the membrane. He and colleagues burili soil and rocks were collected by cylindrical columns in a relatively quiet part of the ocean where the water contains a small amount of nutrients, there is no back flow, and above the little wind.
In one of the columns of all biologists counted a thousand living cells in one cubic centimeter sample. This is for three to four orders of magnitude smaller than in other sediments (note that in this part of the ocean, according to some sources, over a million years, growing only 8 cm bottom).
This discovery is curious, perhaps, only for the Guinness Book of Records, but D’Hondt makes an important observation: “Previously, scientists took samples near the coast, and felt that the data obtained can be extended to the entire ocean. Now it turns out that this is not quite right “.
Some of the microbes living in this part of the ocean, fed hydrogen atoms, which are formed during the decay of radioactive elements of the soil, which is corrupting the water ( rare process, it must be said, does not differ a great option).
Others relied, apparently, for organic remains, which descend from the surface to the ocean bottom.
“These data show that life can exist in damp rocks on Mars, or Europe. If micro-organisms adapted to such a poor place in the ocean, then and there as something kept “- D’Hondt said in a press release the University.
Article authors will be published in PNAS. In it the authors note that their research will continue and probably will be even more poor living organisms places.
