In a recent podcast for Scientific American, Christopher Intagliata talks about new findings just published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, Lukas Kohl et al., Exploring the metabolic potential of microbial communities in the ultra-basic, reducing springs at The Cedars, California:
"The first life on Earth appeared about four billion years ago. One place these pioneering organisms may have emerged is at hydrothermal vents, deep underwater. Where unusual chemistry provided energy for primitive life-forms to survive. Life-forms like the methane-belching microbes found at the vents today.
Now, for the first time, researchers have found evidence of methane-producing life in similarly extreme conditions, but at the surface of the Earth—at a spring in northern California, called The Cedars. The water there is extremely basic—with a pH of 11.6. And it contains no oxygen. Not an easy place to survive..."
In 2010, the Moore Foundation supported Sonoma Land Trust and Save the Redwoods to help conserve this rare and unique landscape in Sonoma County (see grants GBMF2480, GBMF2580).
Listen to the full podcast here.
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