FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Tara Hicks, SOEST Outreach Specialist

(808) 956-3151, cell: (808) 429-7007, hickst@hawaii.edu

New Discoveries of Microbial Life in Ocean Crust

Fluids found within the 3.5-million-year-old ocean crust can support microbial life, according to a new study published tomorrow in the journal Science. A team led by Researcher Jim Cowen of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaii used a 300-meter deep borehole in the ocean crust in the northeast Pacific Ocean to look at never before studied ocean crustal fluids.

Life in the ocean crust is most widely associated with the high-flow high temperature environments of mid-ocean ridges. Previous research looking for microbial life in the lower-flow older ocean crust has concentrated on core samples retrieved from these deep borehole-drilling projects, but this is the first time sampling crustal fluid. A CORK (Circulation Obviation Retrofit Kit) observatory with a BioColumn was able to collect fluid samples and test for water chemistry, biomass, ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequencing, and lipid analysis.

Relative to the seawater found on the ocean floor, the fluid retrieved from the crust has a lower amount of sulfate and magnesium, and elevated amounts of ammonia, which indicate that the fluids have reacted with the ocean crust, and that the microorganisms have been metabolizing using sulfate as an electronic scepter.

“This work collects and analyzes crustal fluids where organisms are living and growing to an extent never before possible,” says Jim Cowen. “The ocean crust is a huge new frontier. It’s in our world, and we know very little about it.” The next step in the research is to isolate the organisms and grow them in a culture so that researchers can better understand what conditions these microorganisms can tolerate and what kinds of metabolisms they are capable of. “The infinite gradation of temperatures and chemical conditions present could lead to discoveries of microorganisms capable of metabolic processes or enzyme systems that we’ve never seen before”.

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For more information read:

Science, January 3, 2003, Volume 299, Number 5603, pages 120-123.

http://www.sciencemag.org/

Jim Cowen cell (808) 391-3921 (Note: Jim is currently in Miami and will be flying back to Honolulu on Jan. 3^rd, arriving ~ 3pm HST)

Work: (808) 956-7124

jcowen@soest.hawaii.edu