Isolated Microbe in South Africa Appears in California's Death Valley

A microbe that was first found 2 miles (3.3 kilometers) beneath a South African gold mine has now been found in California, according to a new study.

The microbe, named Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator, was discovered thriving in water in the deep gold mines of South Africa.

The microbe is the first species known to have independently created an ecosystem. It has evolved without the sun's energy and is living in total darkness, in conditions where temperatures can reach up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

The species is isolated from other forms of life on Earth. It depends on hydrogen and sulfate for its survival, which is formed from decaying radioactive minerals like uranium found in the rocks beneath the Earth's surface and not from sunlight.

Researchers working on a project called "Census of Deep Life", to map the Earth's deep biosphere, have found a microbe deep in boreholes that are located some 2,950 feet (900 meters) beneath the death valley in California. The microbe's DNA matches 99 percent with that of the DNA of Desulforudis audaxviator in South Africa, reports The New Scientist. 

"We're reasonably sure we're looking at the same bug," Duane Moser, from the Desert Research Institute in Las Vegas, told The New Scientist.

"We're taught in school that all life needs some input from the sun," Moser said. "What we're seeing in D. audaxviator is that even where the sun hasn't shone for hundreds of millions of years - like the interior of Earth or Mars - life can find a way."

Researchers suggest two possible reasons as to how the microbes could have reached California, which is on the other side of the planet. One suggestion is that the microbes might have reached the surface possibly through water springs and traveled around the world on currents of air, reports LiveScience.

Another suggestion is that the horizontal flow of the rivers would have allowed the deep-water microbes to travel through underwater rivers. This way, they might have occupied new regions, including California, said the researchers. However, they pointed out that the colonization of the microbes would have taken place even before the continents split from each other and the Atlantic Ocean appeared between them.

The findings of the study were presented at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco, Dec. 6.