A deep sleep in coal beds
Deep below the ocean floor, microorganisms from forest soils continue to thrive. Inagaki
et al.
analyzed the microbial communities in several drill cores off the coast of Japan, some sampling more than 2 km below the seafloor (see the Perspective by Huber). Although cell counts decreased with depth, deep coal beds harbored active communities of methanogenic bacteria. These communities were more similar to those found in forest soils than in other deep marine sediments.
Science
, this issue p.
420
; see also p.
376
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