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 than 2.5 billion years ago). Studying the modern stromatolites in lake Untersee could thereby help scientists understand if ancient stromatolites were formed by microorganisms and in similar conditions.

The paper appears in the current issue of Geobiology.

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