Investigation of the Viability of Osmophile Bacteria of Great Geological Age

Raman Spectroscopy of Microbial Pigments

“…Crystallizing halite can easily entrap microorganisms and organic debris in liquid inclusions, and there they can retain their viability for prolonged periods (88)(89)(90)(91)(92). The presence of cells resembling Dunaliella within brine inclusions in ancient halite, 9 thousand years to 1.44 millions of years ago, from borehole cores from Death Valley, Saline Valley, and Searles Lake, California, was corroborated by Raman microspectrometry (with excitation at 514.5 nm).…”

Entrapment of Bacteria in Fluid Inclusions in Laboratory-Grown Halite

“…During experiment 2, cultures were made by dissolving the halite [surface-sterilized with ethanol (Reiser and Tasch, 1960)] in Luria broth and incubating at 37°C for 24 h. One month after the end of experiment 2 (October 2004), culturing of entrapped cells was attempted by dissolving the halite in deionized water, filtering the solute, then putting the filter in a Petri dish with Luria broth, and incubating as above. Both culturing experiments included sterile controls.…”

“…Tilden (1930) documented the presence of cyanobacteria in halite from Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Reiser and Tasch (1960) isolated halophilic microorganisms from Permian-age halite from Kansas. Dombrowski (1963) reportedly extracted species of Bacillus and Pseudomonas from the Zechstein salt of Europe.…”

Archaeal halophiles (halobacteria) from two British salt mines

“…There are early reports of bacteria recovered from mineral salt and brine springs (Dombrowski, 1963 ;Reiser & Tasch, 1960), published before the halobacteria were recognized as a specific taxonomic group highly adapted to the hypersaline environment. Careful reading provides no evidence that organisms other than eubacteria were recovered in these experiments and it is difficult to rigorously exclude the possibility of contamination by ubiquitous halotolerant surface types.…”