Paleomes In Limestone Samples at 300 meters.

What's New Monday

Believe it or not, I had difficulty picking an article for this week’s What’s New Monday! This past week has had several exciting news articles on microbes. Usually, I try to pick something that has happened in the past few weeks or months. Almost a dozen articles had something to do with microbes in the past four days alone. To narrow things down, I decided to pick the newest article in the timeline. It was released only three hours ago.

This week’s article is about the discovery of microbes in limestone.

Here are the main points below:

Limestone “serves as an archive for microbial colonization of the subsurface.”

Core samples from a depth of 300 meters were taken to observe rock-dwelling microbes.

“We have been able to detect genetic information from past microbial communities—so-called paleomes—in three rock samples,” Kirsten Küsel, co-author of the study, said. “These give us information about which metabolic performances played a role when these microorganisms were still alive.”

The scientist pointed out that this study is crucial to understanding the role of microorganisms in biogeochemical cycles because little is known about them as most of the earth’s microbial biomass is hidden at depths of up to five kilometres below the continental surface, where the microorganisms also colonize solid rock.

This article also helps prove that microbes are everywhere!

Source

Staff writer. Limestone reveals the hidden lives of microbes. Oct. 15, 2023. https://www.mining.com/limestone-reveals-the-hidden-lives-of-microbes/