Microbes may have lived underground for just a billion years - study

• Published date: 06 November 2021

The findings provide context for Earth's deep biosphere – one of the least explored and understood environments on the planet, which hosts the majority of microbial life on Earth. Deep-earth rocks host microbial lineages, which are critical for understanding the origin and evolution of life on Earth.

Biosignatures and the thermal history of some of the oldest rocks were analyzed in order to conduct the study. Prof. Henrik Drake of Linnaeus University in Sweden and Prof. Peter Reiners of the University of Arizona co-authored the study, which was based on an estimated chronological timeline on the habitability of some of Earth's oldest rocks through time.

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The study ultimately suggested that the longest record of continuous habitability is not longer than one billion years, placing constraints on the possibilities of microbe evolution. The researchers...