Methane-eating microbes found beneath Antarctica's melting ice sheets [View all]

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http://news.ufl.edu/articles/2017/07/methane-eating-microbes-found-beneath-antarcticas-melting-ice-sheets-.php

Methane-eating microbes found beneath Antarctica's melting ice sheets

July 31, 2017
Rachel Damiani
photographer: Reed Scherer

Lurking in a lake half a mile beneath Antarctica’s icy surface, methane-eating microbes may mitigate the release of this greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as ice sheets retreat.

A new study published today in Nature Geoscience traces methane’s previously unknown path below the ice in a spot that was once thought to be inhospitable to life. Study researchers sampled the water and sediment in Antarctica’s subglacial Whillans Lake by drilling 800 meters through ice for the first time ever. Next they measured methane amounts and used genomic analyses to find that 99 percent of methane released into the lake is gobbled up by microbes.

These tiny microorganisms may have a big impact on a warming world by preventing methane from seeping into the atmosphere when ice sheets melt, said Brent Christner, a University of Florida microbiologist and co-author on the study.

“This is an environment that most people look at and don’t think it could ever really directly impact us,” Christner said. “But this is a process that could have climatic implications.”

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2992