Discovered in an underground lake under the Taylor glacier in Antarctica is an unusual ecosystem where bacteria managed to live for millions of years without oxygen and in complete darkness at 10 º C below zero. The sea water was trapped under the glacier to form a lake that is about four miles long by 400 meters wide. It never froze due to the high salinity of the water, at four times that of ordinary sea water. Researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Harvard published these findings of theirs in ‘Science.’

The reason behind the striking red color on the white mantle of ice in Blood Falls is the presence of a flow of freshly filtered subglacial brine. The real surprise of the discovery is that the microbial system has been able to survive for a prolonged period without photosynthesis or nutrient from an external source.

The lake is located in the McMurdo Dry Valley, east Antarctica, under a glacier that is 1.5 km thick. According to Jill A. Micucki, head of the research team, the water is anoxic, with high saline content and full of iron. It also contains sulfate, a common energy source for microbes. Based on oxygen isotopes in sulfate and evidence of an enzyme called adenosine 5 fosfosulfatoreductasa, the authors conclude that the microbes are actually reducing sulfate but are doing so through an iron-sulfur metabolism interconnect which uses iron from the base of the rocky substrate of the lake.

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Via guardian.co.uk