( learned of a new water-filled fracture ...)Bacteria that use radiated water as food

learned of a new water-filled fracture inside a South African gold mine near the Johannesburg metropolitan area and viewed it as an opportunity to study subsurface rock uncontaminated by human activities. Lin and others in the research team traveled to the mine and descended the hot, gas-choked shafts to study water slowly seeping from the crack.

The scientists sampled the flowing fracture water many times over 54 days to determine whether the community of microbes, if present, changed in composition and character, and to determine whether contamination had occurred. The researchers also examined the age of the fracture water and its chemical composition.

This fracture water contained hydrocarbons and hydrogen not likely to have been created through biological processes, but rather from decomposition of water exposed to radiation from uranium-bearing rocks.

High density DNA microarray analysis revealed a vast number of bacterial species present, but the samples were dominated by a single new species related to hydrothermal vent bacteria from the division Firmicutes. The ancient age of the fracture water and comparative DNA analysis of the bacterial genes suggests subsurface Firmicutes were removed from contact with their surface cousins anywhere from 3 million to 25 million years ago. The bacteria's rocky living space is a metamorphosed basalt that is about 2.7 billion years old. How surface-related Firmicutes and other species managed to colonize an area so deep within Earth's crust is a mystery.

Some surface Firmicutes species are known to consume sulfate and hydrogen as a way to get energy for growth. Other bacteria can then use the by-products of the Firmicutes as a source of food. The scientists found that the fracture Firmicutes are also able to consume sulfate. Firmicutes do not use radiation directly as a source of energy, however.

Radiation emanating from uranium minerals in or near the fracture allows for the fo
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Source:Indiana University

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