Microbes Discovered That Exist On Hydrogen, Don’t Need Light

In dark, airless, water-filled chambers of rock 3,300 feet below the Columbia River basin, researchers have found bizarre microbes that live on hydrogen, a discovery that suggests that such life might also exist on Mars.

Todd Stevens and Jim McKinley of Pacific Northwest Laboratory in Richland, report in a study to be published today in the journal Science that the microbes appear to get all of their energy from hydrogen that leaches from volcanic basalt rock.

The microbes are found in water pools that may have been trapped between layers of rock more than 35,000 years ago.

Stevens and McKinley call the bacterial community “subsurface lithoautotrophic microbial ecosystem,” or SLiME. They said that SLiME could exist on Mars, a planet thought to have similar deep, rocky pools of water.

SLiME microbes apparently have no need of sunlight and appear to exist only by consuming hydrogen that escapes into the buried water from the basalts, the researchers said. This contrasts with most Earthly lifeforms that depend, directly or indirectly, on the energy of the sun.

The SLiME was found in sampling wells drilled into a rock formation called the Columbia River Basalt Group.

Pacific Northwest Laboratory, operated by Battelle Memorial Institute, is studying the microbes for a U.S. Department of Energy project that could use the tiny organisms to cleanup hazardous and radioactive waste.