Deep beneath the Earth’s surface life is weird and wonderful
https://aeon.co/essays/deep-beneath-the-...-wonderful
EXCERPT: The living landscape all around us is just a thin veneer atop the vast, little-understood bulk of the Earth’s interior. A widespread misconception about the deep subsurface is that this realm consists of a continuous mass of uniform compressed solid rock. Few are aware that this mass of rock is heavily fractured, and water runs in many of these fractures and faults, down to depths of many kilometres. The deep Earth supports an entire biosphere, largely cut off from the surface world, and is still only beginning to be explored and understood.
The amount of water in the subsurface is considerable. Globally, the freshwater reservoir in the subsurface is estimated to be up to 100 times as great as all the available fresh water in the rivers, lakes and swamps combined. This water, ranging in ages from seven years to 2 billion years, is being intensely studied by researchers because it defines the location and scope of deep life. We know now that the deep terrestrial subsurface is home to one quintillion simple (prokaryotic) cells. That is two to 20 times as many cells as live in all the open ocean. By some estimates, the deep biosphere could contain up to one third of Earth’s entire biomass.
To comprehend the deep biosphere, we must look past the familiar rules of biology. [...] Now imagine the challenges in places that have been isolated from sunlight and organic compounds derived from light-dependent reactions for millions or even billions of years. It seems incomprehensible that anything could survive there. Yet scientists [...] have found surprisingly diverse microorganisms in the deep Earth, adapted to a lifestyle independent of the Sun....
MORE: https://aeon.co/essays/deep-beneath-the-...-wonderful
Shrinking glacier cover could lead to increased volcanic activity in Iceland, warn scientists
https://phys.org/news/2017-11-climate-vo...tions.html
EXCERPT: A new study, led by the University of Leeds, has found that there was less volcanic activity in Iceland when glacier cover was more extensive and as the glaciers melted volcanic eruptions increased due to subsequent changes in surface pressure. Dr Graeme Swindles, from the School of Geography at Leeds, said: "Climate change caused by humans is creating rapid ice melt in volcanically active regions. In Iceland, this has put us on a path to more frequent volcanic eruptions."...
'Trash islands' off Central America indicate ocean pollution problem
https://phys.org/news/2017-11-trash-isla...ocean.html
EXCERPT: [...] "It's an environmental disaster," Omoa's deputy mayor, Leonardo Serrano, told AFP. Serrano blamed the garbage on neighboring Guatemala, claiming that communities dumped their refuse into a river and that it had gathered at sea to form floating islands.
Power, though, disputed that. "We also do not know where the garbage comes from," she said. "One of the main sources are rivers on the mainland of Honduras and Guatemala," she said. "But the rest could come from anywhere. It could come on currents from anywhere in Central America or the Caribbean. "Some of micro plastics have probably floating around for years."...
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https://aeon.co/essays/deep-beneath-the-...-wonderful
EXCERPT: The living landscape all around us is just a thin veneer atop the vast, little-understood bulk of the Earth’s interior. A widespread misconception about the deep subsurface is that this realm consists of a continuous mass of uniform compressed solid rock. Few are aware that this mass of rock is heavily fractured, and water runs in many of these fractures and faults, down to depths of many kilometres. The deep Earth supports an entire biosphere, largely cut off from the surface world, and is still only beginning to be explored and understood.
The amount of water in the subsurface is considerable. Globally, the freshwater reservoir in the subsurface is estimated to be up to 100 times as great as all the available fresh water in the rivers, lakes and swamps combined. This water, ranging in ages from seven years to 2 billion years, is being intensely studied by researchers because it defines the location and scope of deep life. We know now that the deep terrestrial subsurface is home to one quintillion simple (prokaryotic) cells. That is two to 20 times as many cells as live in all the open ocean. By some estimates, the deep biosphere could contain up to one third of Earth’s entire biomass.
To comprehend the deep biosphere, we must look past the familiar rules of biology. [...] Now imagine the challenges in places that have been isolated from sunlight and organic compounds derived from light-dependent reactions for millions or even billions of years. It seems incomprehensible that anything could survive there. Yet scientists [...] have found surprisingly diverse microorganisms in the deep Earth, adapted to a lifestyle independent of the Sun....
MORE: https://aeon.co/essays/deep-beneath-the-...-wonderful
Shrinking glacier cover could lead to increased volcanic activity in Iceland, warn scientists
https://phys.org/news/2017-11-climate-vo...tions.html
EXCERPT: A new study, led by the University of Leeds, has found that there was less volcanic activity in Iceland when glacier cover was more extensive and as the glaciers melted volcanic eruptions increased due to subsequent changes in surface pressure. Dr Graeme Swindles, from the School of Geography at Leeds, said: "Climate change caused by humans is creating rapid ice melt in volcanically active regions. In Iceland, this has put us on a path to more frequent volcanic eruptions."...
'Trash islands' off Central America indicate ocean pollution problem
https://phys.org/news/2017-11-trash-isla...ocean.html
EXCERPT: [...] "It's an environmental disaster," Omoa's deputy mayor, Leonardo Serrano, told AFP. Serrano blamed the garbage on neighboring Guatemala, claiming that communities dumped their refuse into a river and that it had gathered at sea to form floating islands.
Power, though, disputed that. "We also do not know where the garbage comes from," she said. "One of the main sources are rivers on the mainland of Honduras and Guatemala," she said. "But the rest could come from anywhere. It could come on currents from anywhere in Central America or the Caribbean. "Some of micro plastics have probably floating around for years."...
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