Scientists analyzed the carbon cycle of microbes living in Lake Mercer. Reported by the University of South Florida.
Mercer is a subglacial lake located in Antarctica that extends to a depth of about one kilometer. Shortly after it was discovered in 2007, it was revealed to be inhabited, although life within it neither fed the Sun nor the flow of heat and chemicals from hot springs. In connection with this, scientists are interested in what these microbes eat and how they live.
Ryan Venturelli and his colleagues decided research carbon cycle of this lake. Carbon is the main “building material” of living organisms, and at the same time this substance forms several stable isotopes. In this way, it is possible to follow the origin of the substance, which has become the food of a living thing, by examining its tissues. The authors extracted a core about two meters long from the ice on the lake and performed radiocarbon dating of the organisms found there to find out where the carbon came from in an isolated area.
It turns out that all the carbon entered the lake about 6,000 years ago, at a time when it was still in contact with the ocean. It also refutes scientists’ assumptions that the reservoir has been trapped under ice for hundreds of thousands of years. “In Lake Mercer, in addition to this 6,000-year-old carbon, microbes can harness the chemical energy obtained through processes associated with the ice sheet,” the scientists say. “As the ice moves, the rock underneath breaks up into tiny particles that dissolve in water, and microbes – mostly bacteria and archaea – gain access to these minerals for energy through chemosynthesis.
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