The salt crystal forms correspond to microorganisms.
Ketija Benisone
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Ketija Benisone
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From lemon to pork, salt is a convenient preservative. However, researchers who studied some of the ancient salt crystals found that they preserved something else – evidence of life.
“There are small cubes of the original fluid that grew the salt,” said Katie Benison, a geologist at the University of West Virginia. “We are surprised that we also saw shapes that matched what we would expect from microorganisms.” “And they could survive in these preserved microorganisms, which are 830 million years old.”
Salt crystals (also known as halite) that Benison and her team studied were found in central Australia. Benison was part of the team that published the findings in a magazine geology.
This video with different salt crystals shows how the liquid looks as it moves inside.
Although the idea that these microorganisms could survive is a mind-boggling idea, Benison said science supports it.
“We know from life in today’s extreme environments that there are organisms that can survive, like a survival regime, almost like hibernation. They are still alive, but they are slowing down all their biological activities, ”she said. .
Benison suspects that if the crystal did contain microorganisms, it could survive hibernation. Halite must be opened to make sure that it is indeed organic material and that it is still alive.
While breaking this crystal may seem like a bold opportunity – after all, we are currently battling a global pandemic caused by microscopic viruses – Benison plans to do so. But she said there was no need to worry.
“It seems like a really bad Class B movie,” she said, “but there’s a lot of detailed work going on over the years to try to figure out how to make it as safe as possible.”
Bonnie Baker, a biologist at Salt Lake City College in Salt Lake City, was not involved in the study, but she still offers some convincing words.
“An ecological organism that has never seen a human before would not have a mechanism that could enter us and cause disease,” she said. “So personally, I’m not afraid of it from a scientific point of view.”
These discoveries were not only an important step in the study of the origin of life on Earth, Baxter said, but also opened the door to finding life on other planets.
“And when we think of Mars, we’re probably talking about billions of years of microbial life on the planet’s waters. So we really need longer experiments with stones that have been around for a long time. our planet to understand our planet, ”said Baker. What could happen to Mars?
And maybe, just maybe, they can take us one step closer to finding alien evidence.
The radio version of this piece was reported by Sacha Pfeiffer and Alyssa Chang. Produced by Michael Levit and edited by Sarah Hendele, modified for the web by Manuela Lopez Restrepo.
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