Microbes feeding on chemicals from volcanic eruptions discovered

The process by which oceanic and continental plates collide, one plate sinks down or

subduction into the mantle and another plate rises, called tectonic activity.This is the basic process by which chemical elements move between the Earth's surface and its interior and eventually return back to the surface.

It is usually believed that this process occurs outsidereach of life due to extremely high pressures and temperatures. Life almost certainly does not exist in extreme conditions, when the Earth's mantle mixes with the crust to form lava, but in recent decades, scientists have learned that microbes penetrate much deeper into the earth's crust than previously thought.

This is the potential for the discovery of previously unknown types of biological interactions occurring with deep plate tectonic processes.

The authors discovered a vast microbial ecosystem that primarily feeds on chemicals: carbon, sulfur and iron, formed during the subduction of the oceanic plate under Costa Rica.

The team found that this microbial ecosystemabsorbs a large amount of carbon generated during subduction, otherwise it would be escaped into the atmosphere. This process results in an estimated carbon reduction of up to 22%.

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