Hidden World Beneath Our Feet: Scientists Discover Vast “Underground Galapagos“
Jakarta, Indonesia - Beneath the Earth’s surface, kilometers down, lies a hidden world teeming with life. An astonishingly vast ecosystem of microorganisms, estimated to contain billions upon billions of organisms, is now revealing its secrets to scientists, and the scale of finding is breathtaking.This subterranean realm, dubbed the “Underground Galapagos” due to its remarkable genetic diversity, may rival – or even surpass - the biodiversity found on the planet’s surface.Initial calculations, presented at the 2018 Annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, revealed the sheer magnitude of this hidden biosphere, far exceeding previous expectations.
Researchers now estimate that approximately 70% of all microbes on Earth reside underground.Collectively, these microscopic organisms represent a staggering 15 to 23 billion tons of carbon – a biomass hundreds of times greater than the total mass of all humans.
While exploration is still in its early stages, preliminary findings suggest the genetic richness of life below the surface is comparable to, and potentially greater than, that found above. This hidden world isn’t populated by large creatures; instead,it’s dominated by bacteria and their relatives,Archaea. Though,