Posted on 04/15/2008 5:52:45 AM PDT by Red Badger
This photo provided by Jack Griffith, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, shows Waste Isolation Pilot Plant staff member Sam Dominguez using a core drill to extract salt crystal samples from a salt wall at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. in December 2006. Griffith and his team found cellulose dating back 253 million years _ along with some possible ancient DNA _ in salt crystals from the underground nuclear waste dump. The crystals were taken from newly mined areas 2,000 feet below WIPP's desert surface last fall and a couple of years ago, Griffith said Wednesday, April 9, 2008. Griffith said he thinks looking for cellulose in salt deposits is a good way to go searching for life on other planets. (AP pPhoto/Courtesy of Jack Griffith)
Cellulose dating back 253 million years - along with some possible ancient DNA - has been found in salt crystals from an underground nuclear waste dump in southern New Mexico.
"We did see some ancient DNA in the salt, but not a lot, and we have to continue experiments to try to verify that it is ancient DNA," said Jack D. Griffith, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.
<A HREF="http://a.tribalfusion.com/h.click/aAmMJlTFbZcWPjYQar3QGZbtQtbvYdjsT6rM2VJ40UrZcV6qm2PM6QPbC2HrO0tQZbmHZao5mQU5cbfTGFkUsM6S6FMWd3STrM05bZasUEUvVEr8STYLQc7CPbmpSWjlUVMW4FuondAyYaex2tjZaQGvZc5AQEpWXHwT1iOR/http://www.classmates.com?s=741741371982889" TARGET="_blank"><IMG SRC=http://cdn5.tribalfusion.com/media/1182946/Classmates_300_1.jpg WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=250 BORDER=0></A> The cellulose - the same microscopic stuff in wood or cotton - was in water locked in tiny cubes of clear and reddish-brown salt crystals at the federal government's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad.
The crystals were taken from newly mined areas 2,000 feet below WIPP's desert surface last fall and a couple of years ago, Griffith said last week.
"We found one in a wall that was a couple of feet across, almost looking like into a huge frozen block of ice. The others were found in crystal that is smaller and finer and in jumbles with sulfur or clay deposits," he said.
The research by Griffith and four co-authors was published in the April issue of the journal Astrobiology.
Griffith said he thinks looking for cellulose in salt deposits is a good way to go searching for life on other planets because cellulose is tough.
He and his colleagues used a tiny drill - about the width of a cat's whisker - to bore into the water-bearing cubes to retrieve drops water as large as one from a standard eyedropper.
"These inclusions contain saturated salt water that is basically a time capsule that is a quarter-of-a-billion years old," Griffith said.
Evaporation cycles from a Permian sea created a 2,000-foot-thick bed of salt.
The water drops were placed in a centrifuge and the remaining pellets were examined with an electron microscope.
"We were thinking we might see bacteria or bacteria viruses or DNA," Griffith said.
"But there were all these mats of this fibrous stuff," which further tests and research found to be cellulose, he said.
The cellulose looks like a web of tangled angel hair pasta. The fibers are about twice the diameter of a DNA molecule.
The discovery of the cellulose, probably remnants of filamentous algae, is significant and exciting, said Karl Niklas, a professor at Cornell University's Department of Plant Biology.
"The cell walls were preserved, so they (Griffith's team) have native cellulose," Niklas said.
The ancient cellulose was not fossilized - a process in which biological material is replaced by minerals, making a rock.
Cellulose is "a fairly simple structure. And it's probably a fairly simple step for the earliest life forms a couple of billion years ago to start stringing these things together one after another," Griffith said.
"Bacterial colonies could use it to synthesize mats. They could coat themselves with it for protection," he said.
"Not only is it (cellulose) extremely stable, but it's also by far the single most abundant molecule on the planet," Griffith said.
Plants, algae and bacteria generate about 100 gigatons of cellulose a year, he said.
"We're kind of living in a soup of this stuff," Griffith said.
Griffith and his students have talked about going into older salt beds - such as an almost 400 million-year-old deposit under Detroit - to look for cellulose.
"The joke has been that this is the first time students want to be sent to the salt mines," he said.
Ping!..........
Hoffa?
We might well ask how it was that "life" figured out that it needed cellwalls that could last that long.
We could ask God why life needs cellwalls good for a full quarter billion years.
So, hey, for an algae cell that expects to be around for a few months why does it need a cellwall that lasts a quarter billion years?
Don’t forget, it was found in SALT, a very good preservative..................
I resent that remark!................
Still, there’s a quarter billion years of interior cell structures to hold in place ~
This is Yucca mountain, I am better dollars to donuts they are looking for something special in the salt, some useful DNA or some living creature to try and stop them from using it to store the nuke waste there.
Why else would they be looking at microscopic salt particles for billion year old evidence of plant life? Last time I checked there are hundreds of other salt mines they can go and play with, why choose one steeped in so much controversy to research like this?
Oil from algae is exactly what we need right now!..............
Good question. But they have to drill test cores anyway, so might as well analyze the stuff they find in them........
Agreed, just kind of suspicious by nature I guess. N.C. to Nevada, they had to jump over literally hundreds of salt mines between the two is all.
Heck maybe the prof. just like an excuse to stay in Vegas with his students while they do their “fieldwork”.
What's that? Its cellulose? Oh. Never mind....
This is not Yucca Mountain. Y.M. is in S.W. Nevada, near the Cali border. This salt mine is in S. New Mexico, near Carlsbad. They are quite a distance apart.
Between the references to “Carlsbad, NM” and “Permian Sea”, I’m pretty sure this is southeast New Mexico, not Vegas (although northern NM does have a non-gambling “Las Vegas”).
29 seconds...
Darn...beat me to it. Very quick!
Yep, when they mentioned nuclear storage site I jumped to conclusions, hence my tagline.
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