Does Yellowstone hold the key to revealing how life began on Earth?

Scientists have discovered a lineage of archaeal microbes living in the hot, acidic waters of Yellowstone National Park’s geothermal features, hinting at the conditions that allowed early lifeforms to thrive on Earth. The microbes, named after Mars due to the iron-rich environments in which they flourish, were found in water as hot as 176 degrees, and as acidic as grapefruit juice. The remarkable discovery has unlocked new clues on the origins of life on Earth, revealing just how important iron may have been to early organisms’ survival. ‘The discovery of archaeal lineages is critical to our understanding of the universal tree of life and evolutionary history of the Earth,’ researchers from Montana State University wrote in a new study, published to the journal nature Microbiology. ‘Geochemically diverse thermal environments in Yellowstone National Park provide unprecedented opportunities for studying archaea in habitats that may represents analogues of earth Earth.’ Archaea, one of the three domains of life, are single-cell organisms. These particular microbes were discovered throughout Yellowstone, with two main subgroups found in the hot waters. There, iron oxide is the main material, the researchers say...MORE