NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

  1. Content with the tag: “lake untersee

  2. Antarctic lake hides bizarre ecosystem


    Lake Untersee matsEerie blue light suffuses the otherworldly bottom of Lake Untersee, Antarctica, where scientists have found structures (purple lumps) built by layer upon layer of growing microbes. Credit: Dale Andersen
    A team of scientists supported by the NASA Exobiology & Evolutionary Biology (Exo/Evo) program have discovered an ecosystem unlike anything previously described deep below the ice of one of the largest and deepest freshwater lakes in East Antarctica. While peering beneath the frozen surface of Lake Untersee, the team identified photosynthetic microbial mats covering the lake’s floor. The mats contain two different microbial communities, each of which produce mats with a distinct morphological structure.

    The Lake Untersee mat structures include stromatolites with a conical morphology that are similar to fossils from the Archean eon (earlier...

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    Source: [ScienceNews]

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