Two billion year old microorganisms and water found on earth
February 21st, 2011 8:24 am ET
An international team of geologists, paleontologists, chemists, and physicists has discovered the oldest water on earth in the South Africa's Witwatersrand Basin according to an article accepted for publication in the publication in the journal Chemical Geology and reviewed at the EurekaAlert web site on February 20, 2011.
The basic findings are:
The neon signature and other chemical signatures indicate the water is two billion years old.
The neon signature of the surrounding rocks has been identified and is the only source of neon available to the water.
The same chemical signatures indicate no interaction of this water with fresh or salt water in the area.
The high salt content of this water is substantially different from any other water on earth.
There are microorganisms growing in the water that are unique to the world indicating the water and any life forms in it developed an incredibly long time.
The eons of isolation have mutated the microorganisms from their geothermal relatives.
The microorganisms are genetically similar to those that exist in geothermal vents and may have migrated to this area of Africa eons ago.
The only chemical reactions observed in this water have been with the surrounding rocks at a very extreme depth in the earth.
The lead author of the paper is Johanna Lippmann-Pipke of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf in Leipzig, Germany, Barbara Sherwood Lollar of the University of Toronto, Canada, and researchers from South Africa, and the United States collaborated in the study.
Dr. Sherwood Lollar presented the new findings at this year's meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington, DC. on Sunday, February 20, 2011.
