Craig is temporarily a post-doctoral fellow at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who is looking for a permanent position. He spends most of his time balancing his overwhelming geekdom with normalcy so he can function in the real world. Luckily his wife likes his geekiness.
Peter Etnoyer is a Graduate Research Associate at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He studies deep corals and ocean fronts, and he loves to be on the water.
Kevin Zelnio is a Graduate Student Researcher at Penn State studying the ecology of hydrothermal vent and methane seep communities. He raises awareness of the plight of the spineless through folk music.
A recent study by led by Santelli in Nature provides an answer that may surprise you. It turns out at A and C are the right answer.
We demonstrate that prokaryotic cell abundances on seafloor-exposed basalts are 3-4 orders of magnitude greater than in overlying deep sea water. Phylogenetic analyses of basaltic lavas from the East Pacific Rise (96 N) and around Hawaii reveal that the basalt-hosted biosphere harbours high bacterial community richness and that community membership is shared between these sites.
Now here is the really freaky part. What supports these bacteria? The authors hypothesized and lab evidence supports that chemical reactions of the basalt provide the energy needed to fuel bacterial growth. Volcanic glass is high reactive containing iron, sulphur, and maganese. When oxygen and nitrate in the surrounding water oxidize these elements, chemolithoautotrophic microogranisms could potentially use the free energy associated with these reactions.
Take awhile for that to sink in...because what that means is that our understanding of carbon cycling and deep-sea systems is missing an entire food source and web.
Santelli, C.M., Orcutt, B.N., Banning, E., Bach, W., Moyer, C.L., Sogin, M.L., Staudigel, H., Edwards, K.J. (2008). Abundance and diversity of microbial life in ocean crust. Nature, 453(7195), 653-656. DOI: 10.1038/nature06899
Life Science
Physical Science
