There might be something living thousands of feet underneath the seabed in the western Pacific Ocean. No, it’s possibly not Godzilla, however it’s still quite interesting.
around 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) beneath the seafloor of the Mariana Trench, the deepest point of the world’s ocean, scientists say there might be possible evidence of life. Their findings are published in the proceedings of the national Academy of Sciences.
The evidence comes from minerals spewed up from the deep oceanic hydrothermal vents in the Mariana Trench. this is an oceanic trench within the western Pacific Ocean that was formed by the collision of two tectonic plates. It's confirmed to be at least 10,994 meters (36,070 ft) deep at its deepest point, although a few studies say it is able to be more.
right in this tectonic-plate convergent boundary, in an area known as the Izu-Bonin-Mariana arc, the scientists collected samples of a serpentine mineral that contained hint amounts of organic material. analysis of the organic material indicates that Its very much like that produced by microbes elsewhere on the earth.
"it is type of like a message in a bottle," lead author Oliver Plumper, an earth scientist at Utrecht university in the Netherlands, stated in a statement. "even though we don’t know the exact origin of the organic material with overall precision, our chemical analysis suggests life deep within or maybe beneath the mud volcano."
The determine 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) was calculated as this is the depth where the mud volcano's inner temperature reaches the limit that scientists consider life can stay up to - about 122°C (~251°F).
but what could any potential life form live off all the way down there? when serpentine is formed through the process of serpentinization, it produces methane fuel and hydrogen. The researchers observe that this could be used as a food source by microbes, similar to how other microbial life utilize the serpentinizing systems in the ocean.
"The mud volcanoes are a unique window in deep underground, and enable us to trace processes that would in any other case remain hidden thing" told us Helen King, another earth scientist in university of Utrecht. "the invention of the organic material in the lithosphere became particularly exciting since they'll suggest a deep biosphere below the mud volcanoes."
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