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Blobrana


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Lake Untersee
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Astrobiologist Dale Andersen's Field Reports: Lake Untersee, Antarctica

Three and a half billion years ago our planet was quite different and Earth's earliest biosphere was dominated by microbial communities - complex multicellular organisms were not to evolve for quite some time, only arriving on the scene about 600 million years ago. Those early ecosystems resulted in the formation of luxuriant microbial mats with a variety of morphologies which are seen today in the stromatolitic fossil record scattered around the globe. One of these morphologies was simply large cones, sometimes reaching heights of 2 meters.
Until recently, there have been no reports of modern microorganisms forming such structures, but in 2008 our research team discovered large conical stromatolites forming beneath the thick perennial ice of Lake Untersee.
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Blobrana


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Antarctic lake hides bizarre ecosystem

In the eerie bluish-purple depths of an Antarctic lake, scientists have discovered otherworldly mounds that tell tales of the planets early days.
Bacteria slowly built the mounds, known as stromatolites, layer by layer on the lake bottom. The lumps, which look like oversized traffic cones, resemble similar structures that first appeared billions of years ago and remain in fossil form as one of the oldest widespread records of ancient life. The Antarctic discovery could thus help scientists better understand the conditions under which primitive life-forms thrived.
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