Materials trapped inside diamonds offer clues to life’s origin; suggest oceans’ worth of water hidden in Deep Earth

Deep Carbon Observatory highlights 10 top discoveries to celebrate a 10-year global investigation of Earth’s largest, least-known ecosystem; 1,200 scientists from 55 nations, 1,400 peer-reviewed papers

Washington DC – Thousands of diamonds, formed hundreds of kilometers deep inside the planet, paved the road to some of the 10-year Deep Carbon Observatory program’s most historic accomplishments and discoveries, being celebrated Oct. 24-26 at the US National Academy of Sciences.

Unsightly black, red, green, and brown specks of minerals, and microscopic pockets of fluid and gas encapsulated by diamonds as they form in Deep Earth, record the elemental surroundings and reactions taking place within Earth at a specific depth and time, divulging some of the planet’s innermost secrets.

Hydrogen and oxygen, for example, trapped inside diamonds from a layer 410 to 660 kilometers below Earth’s surface, reveal the subterranean existence of oceans’ worth of H2O — far more in mass than all the water in every ocean in the surface world.

This massive amount of water may have been brought to Deep Earth from the surface by the movement of the great continental and oceanic plates which, as they separate and move, collide with one another and overlap. This subduction of slabs also buries carbon from the surface back into the depths, a process fundamental to Earth’s natural carbon balance, and therefore to life.

Knowledge of Deep Earth’s water content is critical to understanding the diversity and melting behaviors of materials at the planet’s different depths, the creation and flows of hydrocarbons (e.g. petroleum and natural gas) and other materials, as well as the planet’s deep subterranean electrical conductivity.

By dating the pristine fragments of material trapped inside other super-deep diamond “inclusions,” DCO researchers could put an approximate time stamp on the start of plate tectonics — “one of the planet’s greatest innovations,” in the words of DCO Executive Director Robert Hazen of the Carnegie Institution for Science. It started roughly 3 billion years ago, when the Earth was a mere 1.5 billion years old.

Diamond research accelerated dramatically thanks to the creation of DCO’s global network of researchers and led to some of the program’s most intriguing discoveries and achievements.

Diamonds from the deepest depths, often small with poor clarity, are not generally used as gemstones by Tiffany’s but are amazingly complex, robust and priceless in research. Inclusions offered DCO scientists samples of minerals that exist only at extreme high subterranean pressure, and suggested three ways in which diamonds form.

While as many as 90% of analyzed diamonds were composed of carbon scientists expected in the mantle, some “relatively young” diamonds (up to a few hundred million years old) appear to include carbon from once-living sources; in other words, they are made of carbon returned to Deep Earth from the surface world.

Diamonds also revealed unambiguous evidence that some hydrocarbons form hundreds of miles down, well beyond the realm of living cells: abiotic energy.

Unravelling the mystery of deep abiotic methane and other energy sources helps explain how deep life in the form of microbes and bacteria is nourished, and fuels the proposition that life first originated and evolved far below (rather than migrating down from) the surface world.

Diamonds also enabled DCO scientists to simulate the extreme conditions of Earth’s interior.

DCO’s Extreme Physics and Chemistry community scientists used diamond anvil cells — a tool that can squeeze a sample tremendously between the tips of two diamonds, coupled with lasers that heat the compressed crystals — to simulate deep Earth’s almost unimaginable extreme temperatures and pressures.

Using a variety of advanced techniques, they analyzed the compressed samples, identified 100 new carbon-bearing crystal structures and documented their intriguing properties and behaviors.

The work provided insights into how carbon atoms in Deep Earth “find one another,” aggregate, and assemble to form diamonds and other material.

Development of new materials; potential carbon capture and storage strategies

DCO’s discoveries and research are important and applicable in many ways, including the development of new materials and potential carbon capture and storage strategies.

DCO scientists are studying, for example, how the natural timescale for sequestration of carbon might be shortened.

The weathering of and microbial life inside Oman’s Samail Ophiolite — an unusual, large slab pushed up from Earth’s upper mantle long ago — offers a tutorial in nature’s carbon sequestration techniques, knowledge that might help offset carbon emissions caused by humans.

In Iceland, another DCO natural sequestration project, CarbFix, involves injecting carbon-bearing fluids into basalt and observing their conversion to solids.

A Decade of Discovery

Hundreds of scientists from around the world meet in Washington DC Oct. 24 to 26 to share and celebrate results of the wide-ranging, decade-long Deep Carbon Observatory — one of the largest global research collaborations in Earth sciences ever undertaken (venue, program: Deep Carbon 2019: Launching the Next Decade of Deep Carbon Science, https://deepcarbon.net/deep-carbon-2019).

With its Secretariat at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC, and $50 million in core support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, multiplied many times by additional investment worldwide, a multidisciplinary group of 1,200 researchers from 55 nations worked for 10 years in four interconnected scientic “communities” to explore Earth’s fundamental workings, including:

• How carbon moves between Earth’s interior, surface and atmosphere
• Where Earth’s deep carbon came from, how much exists and in what forms
• How life began, and the limits — such as temperature and pressure — to Earth’s deep microbial life

They met the challenge of investigating Earth’s interior in several ways, producing 1,400 peer-reviewed papers while pursuing 268 projects that involved, for example:

• Studying diamonds, volcanoes, and core samples obtained by drilling on land and at sea
• Conducting lab experiments to mimic the extreme temperatures and pressures of Earth’s interior, and through theoretical modeling of carbon’s evolution and movements over deep time, and
• Developing new high tech instruments

DCO scientists conducted field measurements in remote and inhospitable regions of the world: ocean floors, on top of active volcanoes, and in the deserts of the Middle East.

Where instrumentation and models were lacking, DCO scientists developed new tools and models to meet the challenge. Throughout these studies, DCO invested in the next generation of deep carbon researchers, students and early career scientists, who will carry on the tradition of exploration and discovery for decades to come.

Key discoveries during the 10-year Deep Carbon Observatory program

In addition to insights from its diamond research above, the program’s top discoveries include:

The deep biosphere is one of Earth’s largest ecosystems

Life in the deep subsurface totals 15,000 to 23,000 megatonnes (million metric tons) of carbon, about 250 to 400 times greater than the carbon mass of all humans. The immense Deep Earth biosphere occupies a space nearly twice as large as all the world’s oceans.

DCO scientists explored how microbes draw sustenance from “abiotic” methane and other energy sources — fuel that wasn’t derived from biotic life above.

If microbes can eek out a living using chemical energy from rocks in Earth’s deep subsurface, that may hold true on other planetary bodies.

This knowledge about the types of environments that can sustain life, particularly those where energy is limited, can guide the search for life on other planets. In the outer solar system, for example, energy from the sun is scarce, as it is in Earth’s subsurface environment.

DCO researchers also found the deepest, lowest-density, and longest-lived subseafloor microbial ecosystem ever recorded and changed our understanding of the limits of life at extremes of pressure, temperature, and depth.

Rocks and fluids in Earth’s crust provide clues to the origins of life on this planet, and where to look for life on others

DCO scientists found amino acids and complex organic molecules in rocks on the seafloor. These molecules, the building blocks of life, were formed by abiotic synthesis and had never before been observed in the geologic record.

They also found pockets of ancient salty fluids rich in hydrogen, methane, and helium many kilometers deep, providing evidence of early, protected environments capable of harboring life.

Abiotic methane forms in the crust and mantle of Earth

When water meets the ubiquitous mineral olivine under pressure, the rock reacts with oxygen atoms from the H2O and transforms into another mineral, serpentine — characterized by a scaly, green-brown, snake skin-like appearance.

This process of “serpentinization” leads to the formation of “abiotic” methane in many different environments on Earth. DCO scientists developed and used sophisticated analytical equipment to differentiate between biotic (derived from ancient plants and animals) and abiotic formation of methane.

DCO field and laboratory studies of rocks from the upper mantle document a new high-pressure serpentinization process that produces abiotic methane and other forms of hydrocarbons.

The formation of methane and hydrocarbons through these geologic, abiotic processes provides fuel and sustenance for microbial life.

Atmospheric CO₂ has been relatively stable over the eons but huge, occasional catastrophic carbon disturbances have taken place

DCO scientists have reconstructed Earth’s deep carbon cycle over eons to the present day. This new, more complete picture of the planetary ingassing and outgassing of carbon shows a remarkably stable system over hundreds of millions of years, with a few notable episodic exceptions.

Continental breakup and associated volcanic activity are the dominant causes of natural planetary outgassing. DCO scientists added to this picture by investigating rare episodes of massive volcanic eruptions and asteroid impacts to learn how Earth and its climate responds to such catastrophic carbon disturbances.

Plate tectonics modeling using DCO’s new GPlates platform made it possible to reconstruct the Earth’s carbon cycle through geologic time.

(Watch a 32-second animation of Earth’s continental and oceanic plates in motion since the Jurassic period: http://bit.ly/32hrbLQ)

Much of the carbon outgassed from Deep Earth seeps from fractures and faults unassociated with eruptions

Volcanoes and volcanic regions outgas carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the ocean / atmosphere system at a rate of 280-360 megatonnes per year. This includes both emissions during volcanic eruptions and degassing of CO₂ out of diffuse fractures and faults in volcanic regions worldwide and the mid-ocean ridge system.

Human activities, such as burning fossil fuels, are responsible for about 100 times more CO₂ emissions than all volcanic and tectonic region sources combined.

The changing ratio of CO₂ to SO2 emitted by volcanoes may help forecast eruptions

The volume of outgassed CO₂ relative to SO2 increases for some volcanoes days to weeks before an eruption, raising the possibility of improved forecasting and mitigating danger to humans.

DCO researchers measured volcanic outputs around the globe. Italy’s Mount Etna, for example, one of Earth’s most active volcanoes, typically spewed 5 to 8 times more CO₂ than usual about two weeks before a large eruption.

Fluids move and transform carbon deep within Earth

Experiments and new theoretical work led to a revolutionary new DCO model of water in deep Earth and the discovery that diamonds can easily form through water-rock interactions involving organic and inorganic carbon.

This model predicted the changing chemistry of water found in fluid inclusions in diamonds and yields new insights into the amounts of carbon and nitrogen available for return to Earth’s atmosphere over deep time.

DCO scientists also discovered that the solubility of carbon-bearing minerals, including carbonates, graphite, and diamond, is much higher than previously thought in water-rock systems in the mantle.

31 new carbon-bearing minerals found in four years

After cataloguing known carbon-bearing minerals at Earth’s surface, their composition and where they are found, DCO researchers discovered statistical relationships between mineral localities and the frequency of their occurrence. With that model they predicted 145 yet-to-be-discovered species and in 2015 challenged citizen scientists to help find them.

Of the 31 new-to-science minerals turned up during the Carbon Mineral Challenge, two had been predicted, including triazolite, discovered in Chile and thought to have derived in part from cormorant guano. Photo below.

Meanwhile, scientists led by DCO Executive Director Robert Hazen, established an entirely new mineral classification system.

Through experiment and observation, DCO scientists discovered new forms of carbon deep in Earth’s mantle, shedding new light on the carbon “storage capacity” of the deep mantle, and on the role of subduction in recycling surface carbon back to Earth’s interior.

Studies also cast new light on the record of major changes in our planet’s history such as the rise of oxygen and the waxing and waning of supercontinents.

Two-thirds of Earth’s carbon may be in the iron-rich core

DCO research suggests that two-thirds or more of Earth’s carbon may be sequestered in the core as a form of iron carbide. This “hidden carbon” brings the total carbon content of Earth closer to what is observed in the Sun and helps us to understand the origin of Earth’s carbon from celestial material.

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Comments:

“In 2009, I believed in the existence of lots of non-fossil methane and in the deep origin of life, and the Deep Carbon Observatory has produced important evidence for these hypotheses.”
Jesse Ausubel, The Rockefeller University; Science Advisor, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, USA

“DCO scientists invented new instruments to monitor and measure carbon from volcanoes, revealing promising new ways to forecast eruptions and new estimates for how much carbon is outgassed from volcanoes. The DCO program is a testament to what becomes possible when a group of creative international scientists come together to understand the mysteries of our planet.”
Marie Edmonds, University of Cambridge, UK

“It is only by admitting that one person cannot understand everything that we have made great strides in understanding the dynamics of the whole planets carbon cycle. Carbon is omnipresent and mobile throughout the Earth system, and the entire Cosmos. This makes it impossible for one scientist to understand carbon geochemistry, due to the enormity of the system in space, and through deep time. The DCO has encouraged and enabled people from all over the world to side-step the boundaries which commonly divide and define scientists within the rigid framework of classic disciplines. Only because of our individual admission of inherent ignorance have we been able to advance humanity’s collective understanding of one of the most crucial elements to life. We are now getting closer to seeing the depth of the biosphere, the deepest realms of Earth’s inaccessible interior, and we now know that Earth’s carbon is a cosmic cocktail sourced from across the entire Solar System.”
Sami Mikhail, University of St Andrews, UK

“The scientific secrets diamonds capture and deliver when they surface represent priceless ‘windows’ into the storage and transport of deep carbon over billions of years, yielding clues to their origins and to the workings of nature deep inside the Earth.”
Steven Shirey, Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington DC

“The decadal research program of the Deep Carbon Observatory has put early career scientists front and centre, highlighting the long-term vision of building a vibrant and interdisciplinary community to tackle the big challenges of studying present-day and deep-time Earth processes.”
Sabin Zahirovic, University of Sydney, Australia

“The Deep Carbon Observatory has created unprecedented cross-disciplinary research opportunities within a global community of scientists eager to discover the secrets of the carbon hidden in the interior of the Earth. Working together across the classical boundaries has led to the discovery of a whole range of hydrocarbons forming at depth and that could feed the subsurface biosphere.”
Isabelle Daniel, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, France

“The Deep Carbon Observatory is the seed from which decades of future discoveries in deep carbon science will grow.”
Catherine McCammon, Bayerisches Geoinstitut, Germany

Related DCO news releases

Life in Deep Earth Totals 15 to 23 Billion Tonnes of Carbon–Hundreds of Times More than Humans
http://bit.ly/DCO-DeepLife

Scientists quantify global volcanic CO₂ venting; estimate total carbon on Earth
http://bit.ly/DCO-RF

Rewriting the Textbook on Fossil Fuels
http://bit.ly/DCO-DeepEnergy

Big Data Points Humanity to New Minerals, New Deposits
http://bit.ly/DCO-Minerals

First-Ever Catalog of 208 Human-Caused Minerals Bolsters Argument to Declare ‘Anthropocene Epoch’
http://bit.ly/DCO-Anthropocene

All releases
http://bit.ly/DCO-AllReleases

Future of the Deep Carbon Observatory

The Deep Carbon Observatory launched in 2009 with an ambitious plan to understand how carbon inside Earth–deep carbon–contributes to and affects the global carbon cycle. Carbon is one of the most important elements of our planet: carbon-based fuels provide much of our energy; carbon is an essential element of life; and excess carbon in our atmosphere presents one of the greatest planetary challenges of our time. The amount of carbon in the easily accessible surface environment, however, is only a tiny fraction of the carbon in Earth. Before DCO, remarkably little was known about the physical, chemical, and biological properties of Earth’s deep carbon.

More than 1400 resulting peer-reviewed papers (available in a searchable database: http://bit.ly/2nAzmnk), five books, and seven special issue journals shed light on the quantities, movements, forms, and origins of deep carbon — openly available data that will keep future deep carbon scientists busy for the next decade and beyond.

In the wake of DCO a number of international projects related to deep carbon science have been established: https://deepcarbon.net/launching-next-decade-deep-carbon-science

The Institut du Physique de Globe du Paris will serve as a new headquarters for this global community of deep carbon scientists as they pursue existing and new investigations, with the support of ongoing grants from NASA, the US National Science Foundation, the German Research Foundation, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and other institutions.

Future deep carbon scientists will have many scientific questions to tackle, including the form in which carbon was first delivered to Earth, and when, and how different Earth might look today if the handful of past carbon catastrophes had not taken place, and many others.

DCO products

Members of the DCO community shared what they learned about the deep carbon cycle through articles in peer-reviewed journals, books, and special issues of journals. These include the following:

Books

Deep Carbon: Past to Present is an edited volume that conveys what this international community of deep carbon scientists has learned over the last decade. Edited by Beth N. Orcutt, Isabelle Daniel, and Rajdeep Dasgupta. Cambridge University Press, October 2019.

Symphony in C: and the Evolution of (Almost) Everything explores carbon’s multi-faceted characteristics in four movements – Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Authored by Robert M. Hazen. W.W. Norton & Company, June 2019. Of interest: British composer David Earl wrote a symphony inspired by the concepts in Symphony in C. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra is performing the symphony on 24 October, and a recording of its performance will be available later this year.

Carbon in Planetary Interiors is a special AGU Monograph providing a compilation of new findings by DCO’s Extreme Physics and Chemistry community about carbon in minerals, melts, and fluids at extreme conditions of planetary interiors and brings together emerging insights into carbon’s forms, transformations and movements. Edited by Craig Manning, Wendy Mao, and Jung-Fu Lin. American Geophysical Union, October 2019.

A History of Deep Carbon Science from Crust to Core is a forthcoming historical account of deep carbon science from the 1400s to the present. Authored by Simon Mitton. Cambridge University Press, forthcoming in December 2019.

Carbon in Earth is the first compilation of new findings about the quantities, movements, forms, and origins of deep carbon within Earth’s interior. Edited by Robert Hazen, John A. Baross and Adrian Jones. Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, 2013.

Special issue journals

A special Nature Collection of articles on deep carbon science, to be published on 21 October.

American Mineralogist – A special issue of American Mineralogist features the five most important carbon-related reactions on Earth, prompted by a DCO workshop in March 2018, where scientists from a variety of disciplines came together to discuss the question of which reactions are most critical to life on Earth. The resulting choices and their importance are reported in “Earth in Five Reactions: A Deep Carbon Perspective.” (cite as: Li J, Redfern SAT, Giovannelli D, eds. (2019) Earth in Five Reactions: A Deep Carbon Perspective. Special issue, American Mineralogist)

Elements – This special issue titled “Catastrophic Perturbations to Earth’s Carbon Cycle,” focuses on catastrophic events in Earth’s history and their impact on the carbon cycle. It, too, was prompted by a DCO workshop held in September 2018 to assure that catastrophic perturbations were accounted for in quantifying the deep carbon cycle. (cite as: Edmonds M, Jones A, Suarez C, eds. (2019) Catastrophic Perturbations to Earth’s Carbon Cycle. Special issue, Elements)

Engineering – This is a collection of papers on “Deep Matter and Energy,” which highlight the role of deep volatiles in mediating major Earth processes and spans a broad range of deep carbon science. It contains papers from a joint meeting of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and DCO, attended by 170 scientists from nine nations (cite as: Mao H-K, Sun C, eds. (2019) Deep Matter and Energy. Special issue, Engineering 5:3)

Frontiers Research Topic (x2) – A “Research Topic on Deep Carbon” in Frontiers shares new insights in deep carbon science from across the DCO Science Network. Forty-nine scientists contributed to the collection. (cite as: Daniel I, Zahirovic S, Bower DJ, Cardace D, Ionescu A, Mikhail S, Pistone M, eds. (2019) Research Topic on Deep Carbon. Special issue, Frontiers)

A second Frontiers Research topic focuses on contributions to deep carbon science made by DCO early career scientists, who represent the future of deep carbon science. This collection embodies their innovative ideas, non-traditional working schemes, and demonstrates the success of bringing a globally interconnected perspective to the scientific community. This issue also highlights work from DCO sponsored early career scientists workshops and DCO summer schools. (cite as Giovanelli D, Black BA, Cox AD, and Sheik CS, eds (2017) Research Topic on Deep Carbon in Earth: Early Career Scientist Contributions to the Deep Carbon Observatory. Special issue, Frontiers.)

G-Cubed – A special issue of Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (G-Cubed) focuses on advances in the field of deep carbon degassing, specifically on new understanding of carbon degassing through volcanoes and active tectonic regions. (cite as: Fischer T, Edmonds M, Aiuppa A, eds. (2019) Carbon Degassing Through Volcanoes and Active Tectonic Regions. Special issue, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems)

Journal of the Geological Society of London – This is a thematic set of articles on the “Carbon forms, paths, and processes in the Earth,” derived from lectures presented at the Lake Como School in Como, Italy in October 2017. (cite as: Frezzotti ML, Villa IM, eds. (2019) Carbon Forms, Paths, and Processes in the Earth. Special issue, Journal of the Geological Society of London 176)

Modeling and Visualization

DCO scientists created modeling and visualization approaches that enable scientists to see and manipulate data in new ways. Some specific examples include:

EarthByte: The EarthByte group at the University of Sydney, Australia, created a virtual plate tectonic deep carbon laboratory, which revolutionized the study of mantle-crust-atmosphere interactions over deep time. EarthByte DCO scientists have used this platform, a series of videos reconstructing plate tectonic activity over time, to reconstruct the CO₂ flux in different magmatic settings and simulated hydrogen flux produced by serpentinization of the seafloor over geologic time.

Virtual Reality: DCO helped scientists integrate virtual reality into their research so they can visualize data in new ways, which allows them to manipulate data in three dimensions and conduct virtual experiments. Three specific applications were developed making it possible for scientists to work virtually with mineral networks to see how minerals interact and co-locate with each other, visualize volcanic plumes, and construct and manipulate molecules to show the structure of melts, carbon degassing and other geologic processes.

MELTS/DEW Model DCO scientists developed the first integrated thermodynamic model of the magma-fluid system, making it possible to predict how carbon moves between solid, liquid, and fluid phases in response to temperature and pressure inside Earth.

E3- Earthquakes, Eruptions, and Emissions – DCO supported work to help create an app, developed by the Smithsonian Institution using its data and from the US Geological Survey, that provides open access to 50+ years of data on quakes, eruptions, and related emissions and shows the intimate ties between volcanoes and earthquakes.

Photos

Individual diamonds can have a long, complex, episodic growth history spanning billions of years. By studying tell-tale radioactive elements in their inclusions, some have been dated to 3 billion years and older. At right, shades and shapes record the episodes through which this stone, the Picasso diamond, grew. Download at http://bit.ly/DCOPicasso

Blue boron-bearing diamonds are the world’s most valuable and perhaps the most deeply-derived, estimated to originate around or below 660 km depth. Boron, seen as black spots in this 0.03 carat diamond, offer evidence of the subduction of slabs from the ocean floor into deep earth. Photo: Evan M. Smith/GIA. Download at http://bit.ly/2MgYMQa

Inclusions, material trapped inside diamonds as they form, such as the red garnet seen in this photo, provide windows into Earth’s inner workings. Photo credit: Stephen Richardson, University of Cape Town, South Africa. Download at http://bit.ly/DCODiamond

One of 31 new carbon-bearing minerals discovered during the DCO’s Carbon Mineral Challenge, triazolite was found in Chile. It thought to have derived in part from cormorant guano. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triazolite. Photo credit: Joy Desor, Mineralanalytik Analytical Services. Download at http://bit.ly/DCOTriazolite.

DCO scientists (at left, Lasse Ahonen, right, Riikka Kietäväinen, both of the Geological Survey of Finland) studied samples collected in challenging environments ranging from deep within Earth to below the ocean floor to the summit of active volcanoes. Here, scientists retrieve fluid samples from the Pyhäsalmi Mine in Finland. Credit: Arto Pullinen, GTK, Finland. Download at http://bit.ly/DCOFinland

Scott Nowicki, University of New Mexico, USA, member of an international team of DCO scientists, measured for the first time volcanic gases at Manam and Rabaul volcanoes in Papua New Guinea, using state-of-the-art unmanned aerial vehicles. Credit: Tobias Fischer, University of New Mexico, USA Download at http://bit.ly/DCODrone

DCO field work spanned the globe, often involving collaborators from more than one of DCO’s scientific communities. Shown here is sampling in Costa Rica as part of DCO’s Biology Meets Subduction project, which involved early career scientists from all four communities. At left, Donato Giovannelli, University of Naples “Federico II,” Italy; at right Kayla Iacovino, NASA Johnson, USA). Credit: Katie Pratt/Deep Carbon Observatory. Download at http://bit.ly/DCOCostaRica

To address the technological difficulties in retrieving deep-sea samples, DCO supported the development of PUSH50, a device that maintains deep-sea samples at high pressure so they can be recovered under in situ deep-sea conditions and studied in the laboratory without decompression. Credit: Hervé Cardon, Science for Clean Energy, CNRS, Lyon, France. Download at http://bit.ly/DCOPush50

DCO developer Edward Young, centre, and colleagues created the Panorama mass spectrometer at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA, to perform cutting-edge analysis of methane isotopologues that may be used to discriminate abiotic methane. Credit: Darlene Trew Crist/Deep Carbon Observatory

Download at http://bit.ly/DCOPanorama

DCO scientists Laura Crispini (left), University of Genoa and Peter Kelemen, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, USA, took park in the International Continental Drilling Program’s Oman Drilling Project to investigate natural CO₂ sequestration through weathering and the microbes living inside the Samail Ophiolite. Credit: Darlene Trew Crist/Deep Carbon Observatory. Download at http://bit.ly/2AXBOag

The International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) helped many DCO scientists collect samples and measurements critical to investigating the deep, subseafloor microbiome. Shown here is a rock drill used for the first time in the history of the program during expedition 357 to the Atlantis Massif on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Credit: ECORD/IODP. Download at http://bit.ly/DCOFig31

DCO scientists measured carbon dioxide emissions from more than 30 of the world’s most prolific gas-emitting volcanoes and provided a new estimate of the total flux of carbon from volcanic outgassing. In photo: Tobias Fischer, University of New Mexico, USA. Credit: Carlos Ramirez Umana, Servicio Geologic Ambiental, Costa Rica. Download at http://bit.ly/DCOVolcano

Volcanic eruptions bring diamonds to the surface. These “super-deep” diamonds were found in the Juina area of Brazil and grew at depths of depths of 660 kilometers or more in the mantle. The diamonds contain a range of inclusions of rare mantle minerals, some never previously observed in their natural state. Credit: Graham Pearson, University of Alberta, Canada Download at http://bit.ly/DCOmanydiamonds

The GPlates software (http://www.gplates.org) has been adapted to reconstruct and explore the tectonic sources and sinks of carbon on Earth over geological timescales. This image shows a tectonic reconstruction at 55 million years ago, during the final closure of the gateway of the ancient equatorial Tethyan ocean. Colors highlight areas where carbon is exchanged between shallow and deep Earth reservoirs.

Credit: Sabin Zahirovic, University of Sydney, Australia Download at http://bit.ly/DCOPlates

The resilience of microbes is unmatched. DCO researchers found them surviving–sometimes thriving–in the most extreme environments. Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator, the purplish-blue rod-shaped cells (just a few microns long), for example, lives 2.8 kilometers beneath Earth’s surface at Mponeng Gold Mine near Johannesburg, South Africa. It survives on hydrogen produced by water-rock interactions. Credit: Gaetan Borgonie, ELJ, Belgium. Download at http://bit.ly/DCODeepLife

Basalt eruptions, mammoth compared to this one in Iceland in 2014, have occurred at times through Earth’s history, causing large-scale perturbations to the deep carbon cycle and mass extinctions. Credit: Robert White, University of Cambridge, UK. Download at http://bit.ly/2p7kHAk

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News release in full, click here

Coverage highlights:

Scientists update estimates of Earth’s immense interior carbon reservoirs, and how much carbon Deep Earth naturally swallows and exhales

• 10-year Deep Earth study advances knowledge, delineates limits;
• Do volcanoes send up chemical warnings days before they erupt?
• Carbon catastrophes: Earth has seen a few of them before; they don’t end well for life

Volcanoes, colliding and spreading continental and oceanic plates, and other phenomena re-studied with innovative high-tech tools, provide important fresh insights to Earth’s innermost workings, scientists say.

Preparing to summarize and celebrate the 10-year Deep Carbon Observatory program at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, Oct. 24-26, DCO’s 500-member Reservoirs and Fluxes team today outlined several key findings that span time from the present to billions of years past; from Earth’s core to its atmosphere, and in size from single volcanoes to the five continents.

Among many wide-ranging findings, outlined and summarized in a series of papers published in the journal Elements:

• Just two-tenths of 1% of Earth’s total carbon — about 43,500 gigatonnes (Gt) — is above surface in the oceans, on land, and in the atmosphere. The rest is subsurface, including the crust, mantle and core — an estimated 1.85 billion Gt in all
• CO2 out-gassed to the atmosphere and oceans today from volcanoes and other magmatically active regions is estimated at 280 to 360 million tonnes (0.28 to 0.36 Gt) per year, including that released into the oceans from mid-ocean ridges
• Humanity’s annual carbon emissions through the burning of fossil fuels and forests, etc., are 40 to 100 times greater than all volcanic emissions
• Earth’s deep carbon cycle through deep time reveals balanced, long-term stability of atmospheric CO2, punctuated by large disturbances, including immense, catastrophic releases of magma that occurred at least five times in the past 500 million years. During these events, huge volumes of carbon were outgassed, leading to a warmer atmosphere, acidified oceans. and mass extinctions
• Similarly, a giant meteor impact 66 million years ago, the Chicxulub bolide strike on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, released between 425 and 1,400 Gt of CO2, rapidly warmed the planet and coincided with the mass (>75%) extinction of plants and animals — including the dinosaurs. Over the past 100 years, emissions from anthropogenic activities such as burning fossil fuels have been 40 to 100 times greater than our planet’s geologic carbon emissions
• A shift in the composition of volcanic gases from smelly (akin to burnt matches) sulphur dioxide (SO2) to a gas richer in odorless, colorless CO2 can be sniffed out by monitoring stations or drones to forewarn of an eruption — sometimes hours, sometimes months in advance. Eruption early warning systems with real-time monitoring are moving ahead to exploit the CO2 to SO2 ratio discovery, first recognized with certainty in 2014

Says DCO scientist Marie Edmonds of the University of Cambridge, UK: “Carbon, the basis of all life and the energy source vital to humanity, moves through this planet from its mantle to the atmosphere. To secure a sustainable future, it is of utmost importance that we understand Earth’s entire carbon cycle.”

“Key to unraveling the planet’s natural carbon cycle is quantifying how much carbon there is and where, how much moves — the flux — and how quickly, from Deep Earth reservoirs to the surface and back again.”

Adds colleague Tobias Fischer of the University of New Mexico, USA: “The Deep Carbon Observatory has advanced understanding of the inner workings of Earth. Its collective body of more than 1500 publications has not only increased what is known but established limits to what is knowable, and perhaps unknowable.”

“While we celebrate progress, we underline that deep Earth remains a highly unpredictable scientific frontier; we have truly only started to dent current boundaries of our knowledge.”

How Much Carbon does Earth Contain?

Scientists have long known that carbon inside Earth exists as a diverse array of solids, fluids, and gases. Some of these materials involve combinations of carbon with oxygen (e.g. carbon dioxide), with iron (e.g., carbides), with hydrogen (e.g., kerogen, coal, petroleum, and methane), and other elements (e.g., silicon, sulfur, and nitrogen), in addition to elemental carbon (e.g., graphite and diamond).

Deep Carbon Observatory scientists underline that knowledge of total carbon in lower mantle and core is still speculative and the numbers are sure to evolve in accuracy as research continues. That said, experts (notably Lee et al., 2019) estimate reservoirs of carbon on Earth as follows:

By the numbers: Best current estimates, carbon on Earth 

1.85 billion gigatonnes (1.85 x 1 billion x 1 billion tonnes): Total carbon on Earth

Breakdown:

• 1,845,000,000 (1.845 billion) Gt: total carbon below surface
• 1,500,000,000 (1.5 billion) Gt: Carbon in the lower mantle:
• 315,000,000 (0.315 billion) Gt: Carbon in the continental and oceanic lithospheres
• 30,000,000 (0.03 billion) Gt: Carbon in the upper mantle

• 43,500 Gt: total carbon above surface — in the oceans, on land, and in the atmosphere (2/10ths of 1% of Earth’s total carbon)
• 37,000 Gt: Carbon in the deep ocean (85.1% of all above surface carbon)
• 3,000 Gt: Carbon in marine sediments (6.9%)
• 2,000 Gt: Carbon in the terrestrial biosphere (4.6%)
• 900 Gt Carbon in the surface ocean (2%)
• 590 Gt: Carbon in the atmosphere (1.4%)

Release of CO2 from volcanoes

Earth’s total annual out-gassing of CO2 via volcanoes and through other geological processes such as the heating of limestone in mountain belts is newly estimated by DCO experts at roughly 300 to 400 million metric tonnes (0.3 to 0.4 Gt).

Volcanoes and volcanic regions alone outgas an estimated 280-360 million tonnes (0.28 to 0.36 Gt) of CO2 per year. This includes the CO2 contribution from active volcanic vents, from the diffuse, widespread release of CO2 through soils, faults, and fractures in volcanic regions, volcanic lakes, and from the mid-ocean ridge system.

In many world regions, tectonic outgassing (emissions from mountain belts and other plate boundaries), particularly in cool night temperatures, can cause dangerous levels of CO2 close to the ground — enough to suffocate livestock.

According to DCO researchers, with rare exceptions over millions of years the quantity of carbon released from Earth’s mantle has been in relative balance with the quantity returned through the downward subduction of tectonic plates and other processes.

Carbon catastrophes

While the volume of carbon buried through subduction and what’s released from volcanoes and tectonic fractures are normally in steady state, about four times over the past 500 million years this balance has been upended by the emergence of large volcanic events — 1 million or more square kilometers (the area of Canada) of magma released within a timeframe of a few tens of thousands of years up to 1 million years.

These “large igneous provinces” degassed enormous volumes of carbon (estimated at up to 30,000 Gt — equal to about 70% of the estimated 43,500 Gt of carbon above surface today).

Carbon cycle imbalance can cause rapid global warming, changes to the silicate weathering rate, changes to the hydrologic cycle, and overall rapid habitat changes that can cause mass extinction as the Earth rebalances itself.

Similar carbon catastrophes have been caused by asteroids / meteors (bolides), such as the massive Chixculub impact in the Yucatan area of Central America 65 million years ago — an event to which extinction of the dinosaurs and most other plants and animals of the time has been attributed.

According to Australian researchers Balz Kamber and Joseph Petrus: “The Chicxulub event … greatly disrupted the budget of climate-active gases in the atmosphere, leading to short-term abrupt cooling and medium-term strong warming.”

“Thus, some large bolide impacts are comparable to those observed in the Anthropocene in terms of rapidly disrupting the C (carbon) cycle and potentially exceeding a critical size of perturbation.”

Wiring up volcanoes

DCO experts estimate that about 400 of the 1500 volcanoes active since the last Ice Age 11,700 years ago are venting CO2 today. Another 670 could be producing diffuse emissions, with 102 already documented. Of these, 22 ancient volcanoes that have not erupted since Pleistocene epoch (2.5 million years ago to the Ice Age) are outgassing. Thus all volcanoes, the young and very old, may be emitting CO2.

Today’s CO2, sulphur dioxide and hydrogen sulphide emissions rates are now quantified for many of the world’s most active volcanoes thanks in part to the development of miniature, durable, inexpensive instruments.

And several volcanoes have been wired up with permanent gas instrument monitoring stations to obtain real time data readings, improving monitoring by governments and universities in the USA, Italy, Costa Rica, and elsewhere. About 30 collaboratively operated gas-monitoring stations on volcanoes across five continents now exist, which continually monitor emissions.

Pioneered by scientists with DCO’s DECADE (Deep Earth Carbon DEgassing) subgroup, the technologies and installations have helped revolutionize data collection within inaccessible or dangerous volcanic places. The data obtained are combined with readings from long-established ground and satellite systems.

Recent research has revealed the number of volcanoes thought to be out-gassing measurable amounts of CO2 today. Estimated at 150 in 2013, DECADE researchers confirm that more than 200 volcanic systems emitted measurable volumes of CO2 between the years 2005 and 2017. Of these, several super-regions of diffuse degassing have been documented (e.g., Yellowstone, USA, the East African Rift, Africa, and the Technong volcanic province in China, to name a few). Diffuse degassing is now recognized as a CO2 source comparable to active volcanic vents.

Among the DCO’s legacies: a new database (http://www.magadb.net) to capture information on CO2 fluxes from volcanic and non-volcanic sources around the world.

Volcanic whispers: Changes in ratio of vented SO2 to CO2 can forewarn of eruptions

Research at a growing number of well-monitored volcanoes worldwide has provided important new insight about the timing of eruptions relative to the composition of volcanic outgassing.

Year-round monitoring at five volcanoes revealed that the level of carbon dioxide relative to sulfur dioxide in volcanic gases systematically changes in the hours to months before an eruption. Volcanoes where such patterns have been documented include Poas (Costa Rica), Etna and Stromboli (Italy), Villarica (Chile), and Masaya (Nicaragua). (See also http://bit.ly/2Ssk2UN).

Likewise the CO2 to SO2 ratio changed dramatically months to years prior to large eruptions at Kilauea (Hawaii) and Redoubt Volcano (Alaska), in the USA, suggesting that monitoring gas composition, often in invisible plumes, offers a new eruption forecasting tool that, in some cases, precedes increases in volcano seismicity or ground deformation.

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Comments

“Carbon, the sixth element, plays unique roles in our dynamic and evolving planet. It provides the chemical foundation for life, it serves as the primary source of our energy needs, it inspires a host of remarkable new materials, and it plays a disproportionate role in Earth’s uncertain, changeable climate and environment. These multi-faceted aspects of carbon have inspired decades of intensive research, most of which has focused on the near-surface carbon cycle–the oceans, atmosphere, and biosphere that display rapid changes and that are most influenced by human activities. Deep carbon research takes a longer-term, global view by considering the estimated 90 percent of Earth’s carbon that is hidden from view in the planet’s interior. We explore the forms, quantities, movements, and origins of carbon sequestered in Earth’s inaccessible core, cycling in the deep mantle, reacting in deep fluids, and lurking in a fascinating subsurface biosphere. We cannot understand carbon in Earth–we cannot place the changeable surface world in context–without the necessary baseline provided by deep carbon research.”
– Robert H. Hazen, Executive Director, Deep Carbon Observatory; Senior Staff Scientist, Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory; Author: Symphony in C, Carbon and the Evolution of (Almost) Everything

“For billions of years, Earth seems to have found a balance between carbon subducted deep into the interior and carbon emitted from volcanoes – processes that help to stabilize climate and environment. But how stable is that incessant cycling? No natural law requires that the amount of carbon going down … must exactly equal the carbon returned to the surface by volcanoes and other less violent means. No question is more central to the Deep Carbon Observatory than this balance between what goes down and what comes back up.”
– Cin-Ty Lee, Rice University, USA

“Earth is unique among the planets in our solar system in that it has liquid water at its surface, fosters life, and has active plate tectonics. Identifying all linkages between these phenomena serve as important steps in humanities enduring quest to understand the origins of Earth-like habitability. One absolute certainly, however, is that carbon plays a governing role. For example, Earth’s clement environment is related to atmospheric chemistry, which is warm enough to stabilize liquid water at its surface but cold enough to permit plate tectonics, and it is an incontrovertible fact that the carbon content of our atmosphere and oceans are directly linked with Earth’s climate”
– Sami Mikhail, University of St Andrews, U.K. 

” Important DCO outputs are steady-state models with powerful new data to evaluate the contemporary fluxes between carbon reservoirs in the deep Earth and their effects on everything from the evolution of life to the air we breathe. Armed with this understanding, we can better evaluate perturbations to, or non-linearities in, the Earth system through deep time.”
– Celina Suarez, University of Arkansas, USA

“We have achieved a much more complete picture of volcanic carbon dioxide degassing on Earth, reinforcing the importance of active volcanoes, but discovering that the subtle release over large hydrothermal provinces and areas of continental rifting are also dominant regions of planetary outgassing.”
– Cynthia Werner, Contractor, United States Geological Survey

Appendix:

Deep Carbon 2019: Launching the Next Decade of Deep Carbon Science
24-26 October, U.S. National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC

The Deep Carbon Observatory’s four communities:

Reservoirs and Fluxes

Decadal Goals

• Establish open access, continuous information streams on volcanic gas emission and related activity.
• Determine the chemical forms and distribution of carbon in Earth’s deepest interior.
• Determine seafloor carbon budget and global rates of carbon input into subduction zones.
• Estimate the net direction and magnitude of tectonic carbon fluxes from the mantle and crust to the atmosphere.
• Develop a robust overarching global carbon cycle model through deep time, including the earliest Earth, and coevolution of the geosphere and biosphere.
• Produce quantitative models of global carbon cycling at various scales, and the planetary scale (mantle convection), tectonic scale (subduction zone, orogeny, rift, volcano), and reservoir scale (core, mantle, crust, hydrosphere).

Guiding Questions

• How much carbon is contained in Earth?
• How much carbon is emitted from active volcanoes and active tectonic areas?
• How is carbon recycled between the atmosphere and Earth’s crust, mantle, and core?
• What are the chemical forms of carbon in deep Earth, and how are they distributed?
• What is the nature of the whole Earth carbon cycle and how has it changed over Earth’s history?

By the numbers

• 504 scientists
• 39 countries
• 102 projects
• 372 publications

Participating Research Institutions

• Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
• INGV, Italy
• National University of Costa Rica/Observatorio Vulcanológico y Sismológico de Costa Rica/Universidad de Costa Rica
• Rabaul Volcanological Observatory, Papua New Guinea
• University of Bayreuth, Germany
• University of Bristol, UK
• University of Cambridge, UK
• University of Heidelberg, Germany
• University of Mainz, Germany
• University of New Mexico, US
• University of Palermo, Italy
• University of Padua, Italy
• Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, USA
• University College London, UK
• University of Arkansas, USA
• University of Sydney, Australia
• University of Alberta, Canada
• Carnegie Institution for Science, USA
• Gemological Institute of America, USA
• US Geological Survey, USA

https://deepcarbon.net/community/reservoirs-and-fluxes

Deep Energy

Dedicated to developing a fundamental understanding of environments and processes that regulate the volume and rates of production of abiogenic hydrocarbons and other organic species in the crust and mantle through geological time.

Decadal goal, guiding questions:

https://deepcarbon.net/communities/deep-energy

Extreme Physics And Chemistry

Dedicated to improving our understanding of the physical and chemical behavior of carbon at extreme conditions, as found in the deep interiors of Earth and other planets.

Decadal goal, guiding questions:

https://deepcarbon.net/index.php/community/extreme-physics-and-chemistry

Deep Life

Dedicated to assessing the nature and extent of the deep microbial and viral biosphere.

Decadal goal, guiding questions:

https://deepcarbon.net/index.php/community/deep-life

Selected papers, DCO Reservoirs and Fluxes:

• Fischer et al (2019) Science Advances (in review)
• Tamburello G, Pondrelli S, Chiodini G, Rouwet D (2018) Global-scale control of extensional tectonics on CO2 earth degassing. Nature Communications doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07087-z
• de Moor JM, Aiuppa A, Pacheco J, Avard G, Kern C, Liuzzo M, Martínez M, Giudice G, Fischer TP (2016) Short-period volcanic gas precursors to phreatic eruptions: Insights from Poás Volcano, Costa Rica. Earth and Planetary Science Letters doi: 10.1016/j.epsl.2016.02.056
• McCormick Kilbride B, Edmonds M, Biggs J (2016) Observing eruptions of gas-rich, compressible magmas from space. Nature Communications doi:10.1038/ncomms13744
• Johansson L, Zahirovic S, Müller RD (2018) The interplay between the eruption and weathering of Large Igneous Provinces and the deep-time carbon cycle. Geophysical Research Letters doi: 10.1029/2017GL076691
• Kelemen PB, Manning CE (2015) Reevaluating carbon fluxes in subduction zones, what goes down, mostly comes up. PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1507889112
• Elements special issue on Catastrophic Perturbations of Earth’s Carbon Cycle. In press, due 1 October 2019. Papers can be previewed at http://bit.ly/2mzTR2s
• Werner C, Fischer TP, Aiuppa A, Edmonds M, Cardellini C, Carn S, Chiodini G, Cottrell E, Burton M, Shinohara H, Allard P (2019) Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Subaerial Volcanic Regions: Two Decades in Review. Deep Carbon: Past to Present. Cambridge University Press
• Hauri EH, Cottrell E, Kelley KA, Tucker JM, Shimizu K, Le Voyer M, Marske J, Saal AE (2019) Carbon in the Convecting Mantle. Deep Carbon: Past to Present. Cambridge University Press
• Lee C-T A, Jiang H, Dasgupta R, Torres M (2019) A Framework for Understanding Whole-Earth Carbon Cycling. Deep Carbon: Past to Present. Cambridge University Press

Coverage highlights

Deep Carbon Observatory collaborators, exploring the ‘Galapagos of the deep,’ add to what’s known, unknown, and unknowable about Earth’s most pristine ecosystem

Barely living “zombie” bacteria and other forms of life constitute an immense amount of carbon deep within Earth’s subsurface – 245 to 385 times greater than the carbon mass of all humans on the surface, according to scientists nearing the end of a 10-year international collaboration to reveal Earth’s innermost secrets.

On the eve of the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting, scientists with the Deep Carbon Observatory today reported several transformational discoveries, including how much and what kinds of life exist in the deep subsurface under the greatest extremes of pressure, temperature, and low nutrient availability.

Drilling 2.5 kilometers into the seafloor, and sampling microbes from continental mines and boreholes more than 5 km deep, scientists have used the results to construct models of the ecosystem deep within the planet.

With insights from now hundreds of sites under the continents and seas, they have approximated the size of the deep biosphere – 2 to 2.3 billion cubic km (almost twice the volume of all oceans) – as well as the carbon mass of deep life: 15 to 23 billion tonnes (an average of at least 7.5 tonnes of carbon per cu km subsurface).

The work also helps determine types of extraterrestrial environments that could support life.

Among many key discoveries and insights:

• The deep biosphere constitutes a world that can be viewed as a sort of “subterranean Galapagos” and includes members of all three domains of life: bacteria and archaea (microbes with no membrane-bound nucleus), and eukarya (microbes or multicellular organisms with cells that contain a nucleus as well as membrane-bound organelles)
• Two types of microbes – bacteria and archaea – dominate Deep Earth. Among them are millions of distinct types, most yet to be discovered or characterized. This so-called microbial “dark matter” dramatically expands our perspective on the tree of life. Deep Life scientists say about 70% of Earth’s bacteria and archaea live in the subsurface
• Deep microbes are often very different from their surface cousins, with life cycles on near-geologic timescales, dining in some cases on nothing more than energy from rocks
• The genetic diversity of life below the surface is comparable to or exceeds that above the surface
• While subsurface microbial communities differ greatly between environments, certain genera and higher taxonomic groups are ubiquitous – they appear planet-wide
• Microbial community richness relates to the age of marine sediments where cells are found – suggesting that in older sediments, food energy has declined over time, reducing the microbial community
• The absolute limits of life on Earth in terms of temperature, pressure, and energy availability have yet to be found. The records continually get broken. A frontrunner for Earth’s hottest organism in the natural world is Geogemma barossii, a single-celled organism thriving in hydrothermal vents on the seafloor. Its cells, tiny microscopic spheres, grow and replicate at 121 degrees Celsius (21 degrees hotter than the boiling point of water). Microbial life can survive up to 122°C, the record achieved in a lab culture (by comparison, the record-holding hottest place on Earth’s surface, in an uninhabited Iranian desert, is about 71°C – the temperature of well-done steak)
• The record depth at which life has been found in the continental subsurface is approximately 5 km; the record in marine waters is 10.5 km from the ocean surface, a depth of extreme pressure; at 4000 meters depth, for example, the pressure is approximately 400 times greater than at sea level
• Scientists have a better understanding of the impact on life in subsurface locations manipulated by humans (e.g., fracked shales, carbon capture and storage)

Ever-increasing accuracy and the declining cost of DNA sequencing, coupled with breakthroughs in deep ocean drilling technologies (pioneered on the Japanese scientific vessel Chikyu, designed to ultimately drill far beneath the seabed in some of the planet’s most seismically-active regions) made it possible for researchers to take their first detailed look at the composition of the deep biosphere.

There are comparable efforts to drill ever deeper beneath continental environments, using sampling devices that maintain pressure to preserve microbial life (none thought to pose any threat or benefit to human health).

To estimate the total mass of Earth’s subcontinental deep life, for example, scientists compiled data on cell concentration and microbial diversity from locations around the globe.

Led by Cara Magnabosco of the Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Biology, New York, and an international team of researchers, subsurface scientists factored in a suite of considerations, including global heat flow, surface temperature, depth and lithology – the physical characteristics of rocks in each location – to estimate that the continental subsurface hosts 2 to 6 × 10^29 cells.

Combined with estimates of subsurface life under the oceans, total global Deep Earth biomass is approximately 15 to 23 petagrams (15 to 23 billion tonnes) of carbon.

Says Mitch Sogin of the Marine Biological Laboratory Woods Hole, USA, co-chair of DCO’s Deep Life community of more than 300 researchers in 34 countries: “Exploring the deep subsurface is akin to exploring the Amazon rainforest. There is life everywhere, and everywhere there’s an awe-inspiring abundance of unexpected and unusual organisms.

“Molecular studies raise the likelihood that microbial dark matter is much more diverse than what we currently know it to be, and the deepest branching lineages challenge the three-domain concept introduced by Carl Woese in 1977. Perhaps we are approaching a nexus where the earliest possible branching patterns might be accessible through deep life investigation.

“Ten years ago, we knew far less about the physiologies of the bacteria and microbes that dominate the subsurface biosphere,” says Karen Lloyd, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, USA. “Today, we know that, in many places, they invest most of their energy to simply maintaining their existence and little into growth, which is a fascinating way to live.

“Today too, we know that subsurface life is common. Ten years ago, we had sampled only a few sites – the kinds of places we’d expect to find life. Now, thanks to ultra-deep sampling, we know we can find them pretty much everywhere, albeit the sampling has obviously reached only an infinitesimally tiny part of the deep biosphere.”

“Our studies of deep biosphere microbes have produced much new knowledge, but also a realization and far greater appreciation of how much we have yet to learn about subsurface life,” says Rick Colwell, Oregon State University, USA. “For example, scientists do not yet know all the ways in which deep subsurface life affects surface life and vice versa. And, for now, we can only marvel at the nature of the metabolisms that allow life to survive under the extremely impoverished and forbidding conditions for life in deep Earth.”

Among the many remaining enigmas of deep life on Earth:

Movement: How does deep life spread – laterally through cracks in rocks? Up, down? How can deep life be so similar in South Africa and Seattle, Washington? Did they have similar origins and were separated by plate tectonics, for example? Or do the communities themselves move? What roles do big geological events (such as plate tectonics, earthquakes; creation of large igneous provinces; meteoritic bombardments) play in deep life movements?

Origins: Did life start deep in Earth (either within the crust, near hydrothermal vents, or in subduction zones) then migrate up, toward the sun? Or did life start in a warm little surface pond and migrate down? How do subsurface microbial zombies reproduce, or live without dividing for millions to tens of millions of years?

Energy: Is methane, hydrogen, or natural radiation (from uranium and other elements) the most important energy source for deep life? Which sources of deep energy are most important in different settings? How do the absence of nutrients, and extreme temperatures and pressure, impact microbial distribution and diversity in the subsurface?

Comments

“Discoveries regarding the nature and extent of the deep microbial biosphere are among the crowning achievements of the Deep Carbon Observatory. Deep life researchers have opened our eyes to remarkable vistas – emerging views of life that we never knew existed.”
– Robert Hazen, Senior Staff Scientist, Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution for Science, and DCO Executive Director

“They are not Christmas ornaments, but the tiny balls and tinsel of deep life look they could decorate a tree as well as Swarovski glass. Why would nature make deep life beautiful when there is no light, no mirrors?”
– Jesse Ausubel, The Rockefeller University, a founder of the DCO

“Deep life probably has an important impact on global biogeochemical cycles, and thus on the surface world. However, we are still far from quantifying this impact.”
– Kai-Uwe Hinrichs, MARUM University of Bremen, Germany

“Even in dark and energetically challenging conditions, intraterrestrial ecosystems have uniquely evolved and persisted over millions of years. Expanding our knowledge of deep life will inspire new insights into planetary habitability, leading us to understand why life emerged on our planet and whether life persists in the Martian subsurface and other celestial bodies.”
– Fumio Inagaki, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology

“While we are far from being able to quantify it, we believe Deep Life has an important impact on global biogeochemical cycles and chemical equilibria in habitable rocks. Deep Life plays a role in aquifer quality, for example, or carbon capture and storage (CCS). Unfortunately, the deep biosphere is very poorly considered in engineering operations carried out in the subsurface. We recently demonstrated the high reactivity of deep biota to CO2 injections (CCS), which ultimately led to the bioclogging of the injection well, and surrounding reservoir.”
– Benedicte Menez, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, France

“A decade ago, we had no idea that the rocks beneath our feet could be so vastly inhabited. Experimental investigations told us that microbes could potentially survive to great depth; at that time, we had no evidence, and this has become real ten years later. This is simply fascinating and will surely foster enthusiasm to look for the biotic-abiotic fringe on Earth and elsewhere.”
– Isabelle Daniel, University of Lyon 1, France

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This Deep Life research is part of the Deep Carbon Observatory program, which will issue its final report in October 2019 after a decade of work by a global community of more than 1000 scientists to better understand the quantities, movements, forms, and origins of carbon inside Earth.

Sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the DCO sheds unprecedented light on Earth’s highly active subterranean environment, including the secrets of volcanoes and diamonds, sources of oil and gas, and the origins of life itself, contributing to new understanding of this and other planets.

DCO directly provided a major contribution to opportunities for collaboration between deep subsurface microbiologists that wouldn’t have existed otherwise.

Mysteries of deep carbon include:

Quantities:

How much carbon is stored inside Earth?
What are the reservoirs of that carbon?

Movements:

How does carbon move among reservoirs?
Where are the most significant carbon fluxes between Earth’s deep interior and the surface?

Origins:

How much rising carbon is primordial and how much is recycled from the surface?
Are there deep abiotic sources of methane and other hydrocarbons?

Forms:

What is the nature and extent of deep microbial life?
Did deep organic chemistry play a role in life’s origins?

The four scientific communities of the Deep Carbon Observatory:

Extreme Physics and Chemistry

Dedicated to improving our understanding of the physical and chemical behavior of carbon at extreme conditions, as found in the deep interiors of Earth and other planets.

Image description

Reservoirs and Fluxes

Dedicated to identifying deep carbon reservoirs, determining how carbon moves among these reservoirs, and assessing Earth’s total carbon budget.

Image description

Deep Energy

Dedicated to understanding the volume and rates of abiogenic hydrocarbons and other organic species in the crust and mantle through geological time.

Deep Life

Dedicated to assessing the nature and extent of the deep microbial and viral biosphere.

Deep Carbon Observatory Secretariat: Carnegie Institution for Science
Washington, DC

Coverage presentation, click here

Coverage hyperlinks:

New York Times, USA (333M) Deep Beneath Your Feet, They Live in the Octillions, click here

Agence France Presse

• Vast, zombie-like microbial life lurks beneath seabed, click here
• French: Les entrailles de la Terre grouillent de vie intraterrestre, click here
• Spanish: Las entrañas de la Tierra están repletas de vida “intraterrestre”, click here
• Portuguese: Entranhas da Terra estão repletas de vida ‘intraterrestre’, click here
• Japanese: 地下深部に広大な「生命体の森」 国際研究で発見, click here

Xinhua, China
Subsurface dark community hundreds of times more than humans: study, click here

The Canadian Press
Eat sulphur, breathe rust: Scientists find life deep underground, click here

Europa Press, Spain
La vida en la Tierra profunda constituye una asombora masa de carbono, click here

Agencia EFE, Spain
Biomasa de la vida subterránea es miles de millones de toneladas de carbono, click here

Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Germany
Tief im Boden leben Millionen verschiedener Mikroben, click here

搜狐新闻-搜狐, (China News Network) China (19,788,227)
地下深处微生物总重量首次测出 是人类总重量385倍_生物圈 (The total weight of microorganisms in the depth of the ground is measured for the first time, which is 385 times the total human weight), click here

RIA News, Russia (19,149,117)
Геологи подсчитали массу «зомби-бактерий» в недрах Земли (Geologists have calculated the mass of “zombie bacteria” in the depths of the Earth), click here

Fars, Iran
Deep Earth: Earth’s Most Pristine Ecosystem, click here

* * * * *

UK

BBC:

• Science in Action (7 minutes, starts just after the introduction), click here
• The scale of life beneath our feet (6 min interview with Bob Hazen, audio), click here
• Newsday (4 minute interview with Karen Lloyd, audio, starts at 43 minutes), click here
• BBC Online: Amount of deep life on Earth quantified, click here
• BBC Mundo: El increíble ecosistema oculto bajo la superficie de la Tierra, click here

Daily Telegraph (22 million)
Earth teeming with strange underground organisms which may be planet’s first inhabitants, click here

The Guardian (1,583,615)
Scientists identify vast underground ecosystem containing billions of micro-organisms, click here

Daily Mail (33,237,767)
Barely living ‘zombie’ bacteria in Deep Earth are made up of 15 to 23 billion tons of carbon – 385 times more than in every human on the planet put together, click here

Metro
Weird ‘alien’ lifeforms living underground could be the real rulers of Planet Earth, click here

Nature (7,844,115)
Daily briefing: Subterranean biosphere contains billions of tonnes of life, click here

The Independent (24,275,324)
Massive ‘deep life’ study reveals billions of tonnes of microbes living far beneath Earth’s surface, click here

The Times (15 million)
Earth’s subterranean ecosystem uncovered, click here

The Sun
BUGS BELOW Barely living ‘ZOMBIE’ bacteria lurking in Deep Earth outweigh humanity by nearly 400 to one, click here

CNET UK (60,946,380)
Scientists discover underworld ecosystem teeming with life, click here

* * * * *

USA

CNN International (14,806,025)
Scientists discover billions of tonnes of ‘zombie’ bacteria inhabits the ground beneath our feet, click here
en Español: Millones de bacterias zombis habitan el suelo bajo nuestros pies, descubren científicos, click here

Science Magazine
Scientists uncover massive, diverse ecosystem deep beneath Earth’s surface, click here

Gizmodo
Deep Earth Is Teeming with Mysterious Life, click here

Live Science (via NBC News)
Earth’s Mysterious ‘Deep Biosphere’ Is Home to Millions of Undiscovered Species, Scientists Say, click here

KQED (NPR, San Francisco)
Under Earth’s Surface, a Wild Menagerie of Strange Organisms, click here

The Epoch Times
Scientists Reveal Vast World of Creatures Living 3.5 Miles Underground, click here
Chinese: 研究：高溫高壓的地下深處有無數未知生命, click here

Forbes (36,657,058)
There Is A Colossal Cornucopia Of Exotic Life Hiding Within Earth’s Crust, click here
Russian (1,376,993): Под землей обнаружена неизвестная жизнь | Технологии, click here

* * * * *

RT, Russia (10,506,399)
«Подземный Галапагос»: геобиологи выяснили, что скрывает невидимая часть Земли, click here

Cosmos Magazine, Australia (255,985)
Deep life: exploring microbial dark matter, click here

Bild der Wissenschaft, Germany (116,852)
Reiches Leben in der Unterwelt, click here

Folha de S.Paulo, Brazil (12,615,692)
Ecossistema subterrâneo com bilhões de microorganismos é encontrado por cientistas, click here

National Geographic Polska, Poland (239,063)
Pod ziemią jest cały nowy świat. Dookoła są niesamowite i niespodziewanie niecodzienne organizmy, click here

National Geographic France​ (236,430​)

Le plus grand écosystème microbien du monde découvert sous la croûte terrestre​, click here

Sciences et Avenir, France (1,050,964)
70% des microbes terrestres se cachent dans les sous-sols, click here

Greenreport, Italy (46,005)
Scoperto un mondo sconosciuto: è la Terra. Nel sottosuolo c’è molta più vita di quanto credevamo, click here

El Mercurio, Chile (31,646)
Casi dos tercios de todos los microorganismos viven en el subsuelo profundo de la Tierra, click here

بلد نيوز Egypt (37,567)
حقائق مذهلة عن حياة الزومبي في أعماق الأرض!, click here

ABC, Spain (8,366,627)
Hay un mundo perdido a 5 kilómetros bajo la superficie de la Tierra, click here

* * * * *

News release in full, click here
Full coverage summary, click here

Coverage summary presentation, click here

Metrics (to 4 PM US ET Jan. 25): Languages: 31, Countries: 87, online news sites that published one or more stories: 950, total hits, online news sites: 1,181,aggregate circulation / potential reach (online only): 1.35 billion, Advertising value equivalency (online only): $12.5 million (per Meltwater — assumes 2.5% of visitors to a news site will view a particular article x $0.37 per viewer)

The private lives of minerals: Understanding how and where minerals hook up helps predict discovery; At least 1,500 minerals yet to be found

Applying big data analysis to mineralogy offers a way to predict minerals missing from those known to science, where to find them, and where to find new deposits of valuable minerals such as gold and copper, according to a groundbreaking study.

In a paper published by American Mineralogist, scientists report the first application to mineralogy of network theory (best known for analysis of e.g. the spread of disease, terrorist networks, or Facebook connections).

The results, they say, pioneer a way to reveal mineral diversity and distribution worldwide, mineral evolution through deep time, new trends, and new deposits.

Led by Shaunna Morrison of the Deep Carbon Observatory and DCO Executive Director Robert Hazen (both at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C.), the paper’s 12 authors include DCO colleagues Peter Fox and Ahmed Eleish at the Keck Foundation sponsored Deep-Time Data Infrastructure Data Science Teams at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY.

“The quest for new mineral deposits is incessant, but until recently mineral discovery has been more a matter of luck than scientific prediction,” says Dr. Morrison. “All that may change thanks to big data.”

Humans have collected a vast amount of information on Earth’s more than 5,200 known mineral species (each of which has a unique combination of chemical composition and atomic structure).

Millions of mineral specimens from hundreds of thousands of localities around the world have been described and catalogued. Databases containing details of where each mineral was discovered, all of its known occurrences, and the ages of those deposits are large and growing by the week.

Databases also record essential information on chemical compositions and a host of physical properties, including hardness, color, atomic structure, and more.

Coupled with data on the surrounding geography, the geological setting, and coexisting minerals, Earth scientists now have access to “big data” resources ripe for analysis.

Until recently, scientists didn’t have the necessary modelling and visualization tools to capitalize on these giant stockpiles of information.

Network analysis offers new insight into minerals, just as complex data sets offer important understanding of social media connections, city traffic patterns, and metabolic pathways, to name a few examples.

“Big data is a big thing,” says Dr. Hazen. “You hear about it in all kinds of fields — medicine, commerce; even the US National Security Agency uses it to analyze phone records — but until recently no one had applied big data methods to mineralogy and petrology.”

“I think this is going to expand the rate of mineral discovery in ways that we can’t even imagine now.”

The network analysis technique enables Earth scientists to represent data from multiple variables on thousands of minerals sampled from hundreds of thousands of locations within a single graph.

These visualizations can reveal patterns of occurrence and distribution that might otherwise be hidden within a spreadsheet.

In other words, big data provides an intimate picture of which minerals coexist with each other, as well as what geological, physical, chemical, and (perhaps most surprising) biological characteristics are necessary for their appearance.

From those insights it’s a relatively simple step to predict what minerals are missing from scientific lists, as well as where to go to find new deposits.

Says Dr. Hazen: “Network analysis can provide visual clues to mineralogists regarding where to go and what to look for. This is a brand new idea in the paper and I think it will open up an entirely new direction in mineralogy.”

Already the technique has been used to predict 145 missing carbon-bearing minerals and where to find them, leading to creation of the Deep Carbon Observatory’s Carbon Mineral Challenge. Ten have been found so far.

The estimate came from a statistical analysis of carbon-bearing minerals known today, then extrapolating how many scientists should be looking for.

Predicted before they were found

“We have used the same kinds of techniques to predict that at least 1,500 minerals of all kinds are ‘missing,’ to predict what some of them are, and where to find them,” Dr. Hazen says.

Says Dr. Morrison: “These new approaches to data-driven discovery allow us to predict both minerals unknown to science today and the location of new deposits.

Additionally, understanding how minerals have changed through geologic time, coupled with our knowledge of biology, is leading to new insights regarding the co-evolution of the geosphere and biosphere. ”

In a test case, the researchers explored minerals containing copper, which plays critical roles in modern society (e.g., pipes, wires), as well as essential roles in biological evolution. The element is extremely sensitive to oxygen, so the nature of copper in a mineral offers a clue to the level of oxygen in the atmosphere at the time the mineral formed.

The investigators also performed an analysis of common minerals in igneous rocks-those formed from a hot molten state. The mineral networks of igneous rocks revealed through big data recreated “Bowen’s reaction series” (based on Norman L. Bowen’s painstaking lab experiments in the early 1900s), which shows how a sequence of characteristic minerals appears as the magma cools.

The analysis showed the exact same sequence of minerals embedded in the mineral networks.

The researchers hope that these techniques will lead to an understanding and appreciation of previously unrecognized mineral relationships in varied mineral deposits.

Mineral networks will also serve as effective visual tools for learning about mineralogy and petrology – the branches of science concerned with the origin, composition, structure, properties, and classification of rocks and minerals.

Network analysis has numerous potential applications in geology, both for research and mineral exploration.

Mining companies could use the technology to predict the locations of unknown mineral deposits based on existing data.

Researchers could use these tools to explain how Earth’s minerals have changed over time and incorporate data from biomarker molecules to show how cells and minerals interact.

And ore geologists hope to use mineral network analysis to lead to valuable new deposits.

Dr. Morrison also hopes to use network analysis to reveal the geologic history of other planets. She is a member of the NASA Mars Curiosity Rover team identifying Martian minerals through X-ray diffraction data sent back to Earth. By applying these tools to analyze sedimentary environments on Earth, she believes scientists may also start answering similar questions about Mars.

“Minerals provide the basis for all our material wealth,” she notes, “not just precious gold and brilliant gemstones, but in the brick and steel of every home and office, in cars and planes, in bottles and cans, and in every high-tech gadget from laptops to iPhones.”

“Minerals form the soils in which we grow our crops, they provide the gravel with which we pave our roads, and they filter the water we drink.”

“This new tool for understanding minerals represents an important advance in a scientific field of vital interest.”

News release in full, click here

Example coverage:

Coverage summary: click here

Humans: The greatest contributor to diversity of minerals since oxygen; Officially recognized minerals, formed by nature: More than 5,000; Formed due to human activity: 208

Human industry and ingenuity has done more to diversify and distribute minerals on Earth than any development since the rise of oxygen over 2.2 billion years ago, experts say in a paper published today.

The work bolsters the scientific argument to officially designate a new geological time interval distinguished by the pervasive impact of human activities: the Anthropocene Epoch.

In the paper, published by American Mineralogist, a team led by Robert Hazen of the Carnegie Institution for Science identifies for the first time a group of 208 mineral species that originated either principally or exclusively due to human activities. That’s almost 4% of the roughly 5,200 minerals officially recognized by the International Mineralogical Association (IMA).

Most of the recognized minerals attributed to human activities originated through mining — in ore dumps, through the weathering of slag, formed in tunnel walls, mine water or timbers, or through mine fires.

Six were found on the walls of smelters; three formed in a geothermal piping system.

Some minerals formed due to human actions can also occur naturally. Three in that category were discovered on corroded lead artifacts aboard a Tunisian shipwreck, two on bronze artifacts in Egypt, and two on tin artifacts in Canada. Four were discovered at prehistoric sacrificial burning sites in the Austrian mountains.

Unparalleled pace of diversification

According to the paper, the first great ‘punctuation event’ in the history of Earth’s mineral diversity occurred more than 2 billion years ago when the increase of oxygen in the atmosphere — ‘the Great Oxidation’ — gave rise to as many as two-thirds of the more than 5,200 mineral species officially recognized today.

Says Dr. Hazen, who co-wrote the paper with Edward Grew of the University of Maine, and Marcus Origlieri and Robert Downs of the University of Arizona: “Mineral evolution has continued throughout Earth’s history. It has taken 4.5 billion years for combinations of elements to meet naturally on Earth at a specific location, depth and temperature, and to form into the more than 5,200 minerals officially recognized today. The majority of these have arisen since the Great Oxidation event 2 billion years ago. ”

“Within that collection of 5,200 are 208 minerals produced directly or indirectly by human activities, mostly since the mid-1700s, and we believe that others continue to be formed at that same relatively blazing pace. To imagine 250 years relative to 2 billion years, that’s the difference between the blink of an eye (one third of a second) and one month.”

“Simply put, we live in an era of unparalleled inorganic compound diversification,” says Dr. Hazen. “Indeed, if the Great Oxidation eons ago was a ‘punctuation event’ in Earth’s history, the rapid and extensive geological impact of the Anthropocene is an exclamation mark.”

Anthropogenic minerals

A mineral species is defined as a naturally occurring crystalline compound that has a unique combination chemical composition and crystal structure. As of February, 2017, the IMA had approved 5,208 species (see rruff.info/ima for a complete list).

The authors of the recent paper argue that with so many minerals and mineral-like compounds owing their origin to human activities, “a more comprehensive understanding and analysis of the mineralogical nature of the Anthropocene Epoch is warranted.”

Humanity has had a major impact on diversity and distribution in the mineral world in three principal ways, according to the paper:

1 a) Manufacturing synthetic “mineral-like” compounds, and b) causing minerals to form as an unintentional byproduct of human activity

a) Directly creating synthetic mineral-like compounds such as YAG (yttrium aluminum garnet) crystals used in lasers, silicon “chips” for semi-conductors, carbide grits for abrasives, and various specialty metals and alloys for magnets, machine parts, and tools. Other examples include bricks, earthenware, porcelain, glass and limestone-based Portland cement — the world’s most common form of cement, used in concrete, mortar, stucco and grout — a combination of calcium silicates, calcium sulfates, and other compounds

b) Indirectly contributing to the formation of new minerals through mining, with new compounds appearing on mine walls or in mine dumps, for example. Of special interest are minerals found associated with ancient lead-zinc mining localities, including some possibly dating from the Bronze Age, and others from as far back as 300 AD.?

2) Large scale movement of rocks, sediments, and minerals

In addition to creating new compounds, human activities such as mining and the transport of stone blocks, rocks, sediments, and minerals from their original location to help build roads, bridges, waterways, monuments, kitchen counters, and other human infrastructure, rivals in scale nature’s redistribution such as via glaciers.

Mining operations, meanwhile, have stripped the near-surface environment of ores and fossil fuels, leaving large open pits, tunnel complexes, and, in the case of strip mining, sheared off mountaintops.

Road cuts, tunnels, and embankments represent further distinctively human planetary modifications.

3) Global redistribution of highly valued natural minerals

Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and a host of semi-precious stones, accompanied by concentrations of gold, silver, and platinum, are found in shops and households in every corner of the globe.

Collections of fine mineral specimens juxtapose mineral species that would not occur naturally in combination. From modest beginner collector sets of more common minerals to the world’s greatest museums, these collections, if buried in the stratigraphic record and subsequently unearthed in the distant future, “would reveal unambiguously the passion of humans for the beauty and wonder of the mineral kingdom,” the paper says.

New compounds forming

Says Dr. Downs: “Given humanity’s pervasive influences on the environment, there must be hundreds of as yet unrecognized ‘minerals’ in old mines, smelters, abandoned buildings, and other sites. Meanwhile, new suites of compounds may now be forming in, for example, solid waste dumps where old batteries, electronics, appliances, and other high-tech discards are exposed to weathering and alteration.”

Adds Dr. Origlieri: “In the sediment layers left behind from our age, future mineralogists will find plentiful building materials such as bricks, cinder blocks, and cement, metal alloys such as steel, titanium, and aluminum, along with many lethal radioactive byproducts of the nuclear age. They might also marvel at some beautiful manufactured gemstones, like cubic zirconia, moissanite, synthetic rubies, and many others.”

Says Dr. Grew: “These minerals and mineral-like compounds will be preserved in the geological record as a distinctive, globally-distributed horizon of crystalline novelty–a persistent marker that marks our age as different from all that came before.”

Some anthropogenic minerals wouldn’t be officially recognized today

Calclacite, described by a Belgium-based scientist in 1959, and which originated in an old oak storage cabinet for mineral specimens at the Royal Museum of Natural History, Brussels, is an officially recognized mineral that wouldn’t qualify today; in 1998 the IMA decided to disallow any substance “made by Man.”

Other recognized anthropogenic minerals in this category include several slag-related minerals as well as a pair from Russia, niobocarbide and tantalcarbide, which some experts believe may have been a hoax — “a laboratory product … deliberately passed off as a natural material” in the early 1900s.

Though unlikely to pass scrutiny today, says Dr. Grew, previously recognized minerals such as these, rather than being invalidated, have been allowed to remain in the IMA catalog.

The IMA did agree to recognize a mineral in cases “in which human intervention in the creation of a substance is less direct.”

The origin of up to 29 forms of carbon: humanity

Of the 208 human-mediated minerals identified by the Deep Carbon Observatory researchers, 29 contain carbon.

Origins and forms, along with movements and quantities, are four themes of the DCO (deepcarbon.net). Dr. Hazen is the DCO’s Executive Director.

Now we know that as many as 29 carbon minerals originated with human activities, of which 14 have no recorded natural occurrences. It is fair, therefore, to consider the 14 as the youngest carbon mineral species. Among the 14, candidates for the very youngest include a dozen minerals related to uranium mines.

The mineral andersonite, for example, is found in the tunnels of certain abandoned uranium mines in the American Southwest. At places along the tunnel walls, sandstone becomes saturated with water that contains elements that form a beautiful crust of yellow, orange and green crystals. Prized for its bright green fluorescent glow under a black light, a good sample of andersonite will fetch up to $500 from a collector.

Another notable carbon-bearing mineral is tinnunculite, determined to be a product of hot gases reacting with the excrement of the Eurasian kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) at a burning coal mine in Kopeisk, Chelyabinsk, Russia. It was subsequently discovered also on Russia’s Mt. Rasvumchorr — an entirely natural occurrence.

Tinnunculite is one of eight new minerals identified as part of the Deep Carbon Observatory’s Carbon Mineral Challenge, launched in 2015 to track down an estimated 145 carbon-bearing minerals yet to be formally recognized. The IMA recognized tinnunculite as a mineral in 2015.

###

29 anthropogenic carbon-related minerals

Map: http://bit.ly/2m9UsTY

Human-mediated phases with no confirmed natural occurrences
Recovered from ore dumps: wheatleyite, widgiemoolthalite
Associated with mine tunnel walls: albrechtschraufite, canavesite, je�ekite, línekite
Associated with mine dump fires, including coal mine dumps: acetamide, hoelite, kladnoite
Interaction with mine timbers or leaf litter: paceite, hoganite
Formed in storage cabinets in museums: calclacite
Allegedly from placers, possibly a hoax: niobocarbide, tantalcarbide

Inadvertently produced or human-mediated minerals, occurring or suspected to occur in nature
Recovered from dumps, including ore and serpentinite: hydromagnesite, lansfordite, nesquehonite
Alteration of mine tunnel walls: andersonite, bayleyite, swartzite, znucalite
Associated with mine fires (not coal mines): shannonite
Associated with coal mine and dump fires; Sublimation from gas escape from coal fires: dypingite, ravatite, tinnunculite
Other “post-mine” minerals or context undefined: rabbittite barstowite, phosgenite
Alteration of lead artifacts: barstowite, phosgenite
Alteration of bronze artifacts: chalconatronite

Endnotes

Although yet to be confirmed by the International Union of Geological Sciences, there is growing advocacy for formal recognition of the “Anthropocene Epoch,” the successor of the Holocene Epoch, which began some 11,500 years ago when the most recent ice age glaciers began to retreat. Epochs are normally separated by significant changes in the rock layers to which they correspond. A 35-member Working Group on the Anthropocene (WGA) recommended formal designation of the epoch Anthropocene to the International Geological Congress on 29 August 2016. It may be several years before a final decision is reached.?

About the authors:

• Robert Hazen is Senior Staff Scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, DC, and Executive Director of the Deep Carbon Observatory
• Edward Grew is a Research Professor, Earth and Climate Sciences, University of Maine
• Marcus Origlieri is a Research Associate, University of Arizona
• Robert Downs is a Professor of Geosciences specializing in mineralogy and crystallography, University of Arizona

Carnegie Science seeks to encourage discovery and the application of knowledge to the improvement of humankind. carnegiescience.edu

The Deep Carbon Observatory is an international network of nearly 1000 multi-disciplinary scientists committed to investigating the quantities, movements, forms, and origins of carbon in deep Earth. deepcarbon.net

Anthropogenic minerals, photos:

Metamunirite (NaV O3), Big GypsumValley, San Miguel County, Colorado, USA. Credit RRUFF. Download: http://bit.ly/2lcLOGA

Abhurite [Sn21O6(OH)14Cl16] from the wreck of the SS Cheerful, 14 miles NNW of St. Ives, Cornwall, England. Credit RRUFF. Download: http://bit.ly/2l4j3JJ

Simonkolleite [Zn5(OH)8Cl2·H2O] found on a copper mining artifact, Rowley mine, Maricopa County, Arizona. Credit RRUFF. Download: http://bit.ly/2l4pLiH

Fiedlerite [Pb3Cl4F(OH)·H2O] from a slag site, Greece. Credit RRUFF. Download: http://bit.ly/2kGpa5Y

Nealite [Pb4Fe(AsO3)2Cl4·2H2O] from slag site, Greece. Credit RRUFF. Download: http://bit.ly/2lg0RPd

Chalconatronite [Na2Cu(CO3)2·3H2O], Mont Saint-Hilaire, Quebec, Canada. Credit RRUFF. Download: http://bit.ly/2l4qMaL

Andersonite: Hillside Mine, Arizona. Credit: Trevor Boyd/Causeway Minerals. Download:http://bit.ly/2mfJtaC

* * * * *

Example coverage:

Washington Post, USA
Humans have caused an explosion of never-before-seen minerals all over the Earth, (click here)

Los Angeles Times, USA
You are living in a unique time on planet Earth — mineralogically speaking, (click here)

Discover Magazine, USA
Human-Caused Minerals: Another Sure Sign of the Anthropocene?, (click here)

Forbes, USA
Human Activity On Earth Triggered A New Age Of Minerals Formation, (click here)

Scientific American, USA
Found: Thousands of Man-Made Minerals—Another Argument for the Anthropocene, (click here)

Popular Science, USA
Is the Anthropocene really a thing? Minerals we’ve helped create rekindle the debate, (click here)

Popular Mechanics, USA
Humanity Has Created Thousands of Artificial Minerals, (click here)

Newsy, USA (90 second report)
Humans Drastically Change The Environment — And We Always Have, (click here)

Nature World News, United States
Human Activity Ushers in the Planet’s Next Epoch Starting From a Spike in New Minerals, (click here)

Reuters, UK
New minerals back idea of man-made epoch for Earth – study, (click here)

BBC, UK
Humans help cook up mineral bounty, (click here)

BBC Mundo, UK
Vertederos, minas abandonadas y cajones de museos, los lugares donde los humanos hemos provocado que se creen nuevos minerales, (click here)

Daily Mail, UK
Human impact on the planet’s chemistry has created a catalogue of new minerals in ‘the blink of an eye’, say scientists, (click here)

The Guardian, UK
Rock of ages: impact of manmade crystals defining new geological epoch – study, (click here)

New Scientist, UK
Rock solid evidence of Anthropocene seen in 208 minerals we made, (click here)

Business Insider, UK
Earth entered a new epoch on July 16, 1945 — and humans have left behind more than 200 new minerals to prove it, (click here)

International Business Times, UK
Anthropocene: The 208 crystals that don’t exist anywhere else in the universe, (click here)

Chemistry World, UK
Human-made minerals add to evidence for Anthopocene epoch, (click here)

Press Trust of India
208 new human-caused minerals point to ‘Anthropocene Epoch’, (click here)

东方网 (Oriental Network), China
人类活动“一夜间”致200多种新矿物产生,  (Human activities “one night” produced more than 200 kinds of new minerals)(click here)

RAI Novosti newswire, Russia
Люди меняют геологию Земли: 208 новых минералов имеют антропогенное происхождение (People change the geology of the Earth: 208 new minerals are of anthropogenic origin), (click here)

Spiegel, Germany
Geologie: Menschheit ließ 200 Mineralien neu entstehen (Humanity has newly created 200 minerals), (click here)

Berliner Morgenpost, Germany
Sind neue Mineralien ein Beweis für ein neues Erdzeitalter? (Are new minerals a proof of a new era?), (click here); 2nd story: 
Der Mensch lässt neue Mineralien entstehen  (Human beings create new minerals), (click here)

Die Presse, Austria
Mineralien des Menschenzeitalters (Minerals of the Human Age), (click here)

Science.ORF (Austrian Broadcasting Corporation), Austria
Ein Argument mehr für das „Anthropozän“ (A further argument for the “Anthropocene”), (click here)

El País, Spain
Los humanos han creado ya 208 nuevos minerales (Humans have already created 208 new minerals), (click here)

Agencia EFE, Spain
Científicos catalogan 208 minerales creados por la actividad humana (Scientists catalog 208 minerals created by human activity), (click here)

Europa Press, Spain
Un catálogo de 208 minerales generados por el hombre refuerza el argumento para declarar la ‘Época Antropocénica (A catalog of 208 man-made minerals reinforces the argument for declaring the ‘Anthropocenic Age’), (click here)

ABC, Spain
Confirmación del Antropoceno: El hombre ya es la segunda fuerza que ha creado más minerales (Confirmation of the Anthropocene: Man is already the second force that has created more minerals), (click here)

La Vanguardia, Spain
Los humanos hemos creado 208 minerales que no existían en la Tierra, (click here)

Corriere Della Sera, Italy
Uomo ha segnato nuova era geologica, (click here)

La Scienze, Italy
I minerali prodotti dall’uomo raccontano l’Antropocene (The minerals produced by man tell the Anthropocene), (click here)

Huffington Post, Italy
Antropocene, gli scienziati trovano una nuova prova a sostegno della tesi: “Scoperti minerali che non esisterebbero senza l’uomo” (Anthropocene, scientists found new evidence in support of the thesis: “Uncovered minerals that would not exist without the man”), (click here)

Reporterre, France
Nous sommes entrés dans l’anthropocène, affirment des minéralogistes (We have entered the anthropocene, say mineralogists), (click here)

Hirado.hu, Hungary
Több száz új ásványt hoztunk létre, (click here)

Tekniikka&Talous, Finland
Ihmiskunta synnyttänyt 208 aivan uutta mineraalia – vauhti hämmästyttävää (Mankind created 208 completely new minerals – an astonishing pace), (click here)

Energia, Greece
Το 4% των Ορυκτών της Γης Έχει Δημιουργηθεί Χάρη στους Ανθρώπους (4% of the Earth’s Minerals were created thanks to Humans), (click here)

Nederlands Dagblad, Netherlands
Mens zorgde voor nieuwe mineralen (Man brought new minerals), (click here)

Volkskrant, Netherlands
Versteende vogelpoep is gepromoveerd tot mineraal (Fossilized bird droppings promoted to mineral), (click here)

CBC, Canada
We’ve created 208 new minerals: Time for a new, human-influenced Anthropocene epoch?, (click here)

Mining.com, Canada
Human activity creates 208 new mineral species, (click here)

ABC Radio, Australia
Human activity helps create hundreds of new minerals, (click here)

Cosmos Magazine, Australia
Humans have created at least 208 new types of mineral, (click here)

O Globo, Brazil
Atividade humana criou 208 novos minerais no planeta, (click here)

O Globo TV, Brazil (two minute report)
Ação do homem pode dar início a nova era geológica, revelam cientistas (Man’s action may usher in new geological era, scientists reveal), (click here)

El Mercurio, Chile
Al menos 208 minerales no fueron creados por la naturaleza, sino que por los humanos (At least 208 minerals were not created by nature, but by humans), (click here)

Al Maghrib Today, Morocco
أبحاثجديدةتكشفأنالإنسانأثرعلى  (New research reveals that the human impact on the chemistry of the planet), (click here)

Báo Mới, Viet Nam
Con người khiến Trái Đất bùng nổ đa dạng khoáng sản (Humans create boom of Earth’s mineral variety), (click here)

Fins.az, Azerbaijan
208 mineralı insanlar yaradıb – TƏDQİQAT (People have created 208 minerals – RESEARCH), (click here)

Full coverage summary, click here

News release in full, click here

8 December 2013

New formula for fast, abundant H2 production may help power fuel cells, helps explain expansive chemical-eating microbial communities of the deep

• Water + rock + aluminum oxide + extreme pressure, heat = quick, copious H2
• Hydrogen: first life’s first food?
• DCO scientists marvel at genetic similarity of sub-surface microbes continents apart — a network of life in deep rocks and seabeds? *
• First-ever model reveals how water behaves in extreme deep pressures, heat
• Deep Carbon Observatory science stars, investigating mysteries of Earth’s innermost workings, form large presence at American Geophysical Union meeting, San Francisco, 9-13 December 2013

Scientists in Lyon, a French city famed for its cuisine, have discovered a quick-cook recipe for copious volumes of hydrogen (H2).

The breakthrough suggests a better way of producing the hydrogen that propels rockets and energizes battery-like fuel cells. In a few decades, it could even help the world meet key energy needs — without carbon emissions contributing to the greenhouse effect and climate change.

It also has profound implications for the abundance and distribution of life, helping to explain the astonishingly widespread microbial communities that dine on hydrogen deep beneath the continents and seafloor.

Describing how to greatly speed up nature’s process for producing hydrogen will be a highlight among many presentations by Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) experts at the American Geophysical Union’s annual Fall Meeting in San Francisco Dec. 9 to 13.

The DCO is a global, 10-year international science collaboration unraveling the mysteries of Earth’s inner workings — deep life, energy, chemistry, and fluid movements.

Muriel Andreani, Isabelle Daniel, and Marion Pollet-Villard of University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 discovered the quick recipe for producing hydrogen:

In a microscopic high-pressure cooker called a diamond anvil cell (within a tiny space about as wide as a pencil lead), combine ingredients: aluminum oxide, water, and the mineral olivine. Set at 200 to 300 degrees Celsius and 2 kilobars pressure — comparable to conditions found at twice the depth of the deepest ocean. Cook for 24 hours. And voilà.

Dr. Daniel, a DCO leader, explains that scientists have long known nature’s way of producing hydrogen. When water meets the ubiquitous mineral olivine under pressure, the rock reacts with oxygen (O) atoms from the H2O, transforming olivine into another mineral, serpentine — characterized by a scaly, green-brown surface appearance like snake skin. Olivine is a common yellow to yellow-green mineral made of magnesium, iron, silicon, and oxygen.

The process also leaves hydrogen (H2) molecules divorced from their marriage with oxygen atoms in water.

The novelty in the discovery, quietly published in a summer edition of the journal American Mineralogist, is how aluminum profoundly accelerates and impacts the process.

Finding the reaction completed in the diamond-enclosed micro space overnight, instead of over months as expected, left the scientists amazed. The experiments produced H2 some 7 to 50 times faster than the natural “serpentinization” of olivine.

Over decades, many teams looking to achieve this same quick hydrogen result focused mainly on the role of iron within the olivine, Dr. Andreani says. Introducing aluminum into the hot, high-pressure mix produced the eureka moment.

Dr. Daniel notes that aluminum is Earth’s 5th most abundant element and usually is present, therefore, in the natural serpentinization process. The experiment introduced a quantity of aluminum unrealistic in nature.

Jesse Ausubel, of The Rockefeller University and a founder of the DCO program, says current methods for commercial hydrogen production for fuel cells or to power rockets “usually involve the conversion of methane (CH4), a process that produces the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) as a byproduct. Alternatively, we can split water molecules at temperatures of 850 degrees Celsius or more — and thus need lots of energy and extra careful engineering.”

“Aluminum’s ability to catalyze hydrogen production at a much lower temperature could make an enormous difference. The cost and risk of the process would drop a lot.”

“Scaling this up to meet global energy needs in a carbon-free way would probably require 50 years,” he adds. “But a growing market for hydrogen in fuel cells could help pull the process into the market.”

“We still need to solve problems for a hydrogen economy, such as storing the hydrogen efficiently as a gas in compact containers, or optimizing methods to turn it into a metal, as pioneered by Russell Hemley of the Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory, another co-founder of the DCO.”

Deep energy, Dr. Hemley notes, is typically thought of in terms of geothermal energy available from heat deep within Earth, as well as subterranean fluids that can be burned for energy, such as methane and petroleum. What may strike some as new is that there is also chemical energy in the form of hydrogen produced by serpentinization.

At the time of the AGU Fall Meetings, Dr. Andreani will be taking a lead role with Javier Escartin of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in a 40-member international scientific exploration of fault lines along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It is a place where the African and American continents continue to separate at an annual rate of about 20 mm (1.5 inches) and rock is forced up from the mantle only 4 to 6 km (2.5 to 3.7 miles) below the thin ocean floor crust. The study will advance several DCO goals, including the mapping of world regions where deep life-supporting H2 is released through serpentinization.

Aboard the French vessel Pourquoi Pas?, using a deep sea robot from the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER), and a deep-sea vehicle from Germany’s Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (GEOMAR), the team includes researchers from France, Germany, USA, Wales, Spain, Norway and Greece (more information: odemar.weebly.com).

With the results of the experiment in France, “for the first time we understand why and how we have H2 produced at such a fast rate. When you take into account aluminum, you are able to explain the amount of life flourishing on hydrogen,” says Dr. Daniel.Notes Dr. Daniel, until now it has been a scientific mystery how the rock + water + pressure formula produces enough hydrogen to support the chemical-loving microbial and other forms of life abounding in the hostile environments of the deep.

Indeed, DCO scientists hypothesize that hydrogen was what fed the earliest life on primordial planet Earth — first life’s first food.

And, she adds: “We believe the serpentinization process may be underway on many planetary bodies — notably Mars. The reaction may take one day or one million years but it will occur whenever and wherever there is some water present to react with olivine — one of the most abundant minerals in the solar system.”

Enigmatic evidence of a deep subterranean microbe network

Meanwhile, the genetic makeup of Earth’s deep microbial life is being revealed through DCO research underway by Matt Schrenk of Michigan State University, head of DCO’s “Rock-Hosted Communities” initiative, Tom McCollom of the University of Colorado, Boulder, Steve D’Hondt of the University of Rhode Island, and many other associates.

At AGU, they will report the results of deep sampling from opposite sides of the world, revealing enigmatic evidence of a deep subterranean microbe network.

Using DNA, researchers are finding hydrogen-metabolizing microbes in rock fractures deep beneath the North American and European continents that are highly similar to samples a Princeton University group obtained from deep rock fractures 4 to 5 km (2.5 to 3 miles) down a Johannesburg-area mine shaft. These DNA sequences are also highly similar to those of microbes in the rocky seabeds off the North American northwest and northeastern Japanese coasts.

“Two years ago we had a scant idea about what microbes are present in subsurface rocks or what they eat,” says Dr. Schrenk. “Since then a number of studies have vastly expanded that database. We’re getting this emerging picture not only of what sort of organisms are found in these systems but some consistency between sites globally — we’re seeing the same types of organisms everywhere we look.”

“It is easy to understand how birds or fish might be similar oceans apart, but it challenges the imagination to think of nearly identical microbes 16,000 km apart from each other in the cracks of hard rock at extreme depths, pressures, and temperatures” he says.

“In some deep places, such as deep-sea hydrothermal vents, the environment is highly dynamic and promotes prolific biological communities,” says Dr. McCollom. “In others, such as the deep fractures, the systems are isolated with a low diversity of microbes capable of surviving such harsh conditions.”

“The collection and coupling of microbiological and geochemical data made possible through the Deep Carbon Observatory is helping us understand and describe these phenomena.”

How water behaves deep within Earth’s mantle

Among other major presentations, DCO investigators will introduce a new model that offers new insights into water / rock interactions at extreme pressures 150 km (93 miles) or more below the surface, well into Earth’s upper mantle. To now, most models have been limited to 15 km, one-tenth the depth.

“The DCO gives a happy twist to the phrase ‘We are in deep water’,” says researcher Dimitri Sverjensky of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD.

Dr. Sverjensky’s work, accepted for publication by the Elsevier journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, is expected to revolutionize understanding of deep Earth water chemistry and its impacts on subsurface processes as diverse as diamond formation, hydrogen accumulation, the transport of diverse carbon-, nitrogen- and sulfur-fed species in the mantle, serpentinization, mantle degassing, and the origin of Earth’s atmosphere.

In deep Earth, despite extreme high temperatures and pressures, water is a fluid that circulates and reacts chemically with the rocks through which it passes, changing the minerals in them and undergoing alteration itself — a key agent for transporting carbon and other chemical elements. Understanding what water is like and how it behaves in Earth’s deep interior is fundamental to understanding the deep carbon cycle, deep life, and deep energy.

This water-rock interaction produces valuable ore deposits, creates the chemicals on which deep life and deep energy depend, influences the generation of magma that erupts from volcanoes — even the occurrence of earthquakes. Humanity gets glimpses of this water in hot springs.

Says Dr. Sverjensky: “The new model may enable us to predict water-rock interaction well into Earth upper mantle and help visualize where on Earth H2 production might be underway.”

		IMAGE: A hydrogen bubble is quickly released as olivine meets water and aluminum oxide under extreme pressure and heat. Click here for more information.

The DCO is now in the 5th year of a decade-long adventure to probe Earth’s deepest geo-secrets: How much carbon is stored inside Earth? What are the reservoirs of that carbon? How does carbon move among reservoirs? How much carbon released from Earth’s deep interior is primordial and how much is recycled from the surface? Are there deep abiotic sources of hydrocarbons? What is the nature and extent of deep microbial life? And did deep Earth chemistry play a role in life’s origins?

The $500 million global collaboration is led by Dr. Robert Hazen, Senior Staff Scientist at the Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Says Dr. Hazen: “Bringing together experts in microbes, volcanoes, the micro-structure of rocks and minerals, fluid movements, and more is novel. Typically these experts don’t connect with each other. Integrating such diversity in a single scientific endeavor is producing insights unavailable until the DCO.”

Ninety percent or more of Earth’s carbon is thought to be locked away or in motion deep underground, he notes, a hidden dimension of the planet as poorly understood as it is profoundly important to life on the surface.

DCO is hosting several events both before and during the AGU Fall Meeting 2013 and a large number of presentations are being given at the by DCO scientists from all four research communities — deep life, deep energy, extreme physics and chemistry, and reservoirs and fluxes (for DCO presentations at AGU).

The Deep Carbon Observatory:

A 10-year global quest to discover the quantity, movements, origins, and forms of Earth’s deep carbon; to probe the secrets of volcanoes and diamonds, sources of gas and oil, and life’s deep limits and origins; and to report the known, unknown, and unknowable by 2019.

The DCO continues to seek the collaboration and contributions of all scientists interested in the unfolding, and as yet untold, story of carbon in Earth. Conducting expeditions, laboratory experiments, and simulations, we ultimately aim to advance significantly, and perhaps change fundamentally, our understanding of carbon and the role it plays in our lives.

The DCO aims to create legacies of instruments measuring at great depths, temperatures, and pressures; networks sensing fluxes of carbon-containing gases and fluids between the depths and the surface; open access databases about deep carbon; deep carbon researchers integrating geology, physics, chemistry, and biology; insights improving energy systems; and a public more engaged with deep carbon science.

Deep Carbon Observatory Secretariat: Carnegie Institution of Washington
5251 Broad Branch Road, NW, Washington, DC 20015-1305; +1-202-478-8818
info@deepcarbon.net

* * * * *

News release in full: click here

Coverage summary, with links to coverage in 13 languages across 45 countries, click here

Example media coverage:

Reuters, UK, Short-cut to produce hydrogen seen as step to cleaner fuel, click here

Agencia EFE, Spain, Nueva forma de producir hidrógeno abre puertas para era de energía limpia, click here

The Independent, UK, Life on earth may have developed below rather than above ground, reveal scientists, click here

Daily Mail, UK, Did life begin underground? Microbes found three MILES below the surface are similar to those that lived 3.5 billion years ago, click here

Deep Carbon Observatory

4-Mar-2013

Probing the secrets of volcanoes and diamonds, sources of gas and oil, and the origins of life itself, Deep Carbon Observatory scientists publish landmark volume 3 years into historic 10-year, $500 million global collaboration

From Earth’s surface to hundreds of kilometers deeper than oilmen drill, the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) is investigating the surprising quantity of carbon in the deep, dark Earth beyond photosynthesis.

The program is investigating deep carbon’s movement in the slow convection of the mantle, the percolating fluids of the crust, and the violent emission from volcanoes. It searches for the ancient origin of the deep carbon, and the formation and transformation of its many forms, ranging from gas and oil to diamonds and deep microbes.

Ninety percent or more of Earth’s carbon is thought to be locked away or in motion deep underground—a hidden dimension of the planet as poorly understood as it is profoundly important to life on the surface, according to scientists probing the world’s innermost secrets in the decade-long, $500 million project.

In a landmark volume, DCO scientists say estimates of carbon bound in the metallic core alone range from 0.25 to 1 percent by weight. If 1 percent proves correct, the core by itself sequesters four times more carbon than all known carbon reservoirs in the rest of the planet—and 50,000,000 times as much as that held in the flora and fauna on Earth’s relatively wafer-thin skin far above.

News release in full: click here

Sample coverage: by Reuters, click here, by The Canadian Press / Associated Press, click here, by Agence France Presse, click here, by the InterPress Service, click here, Agencia EFE (Spanish here, Portuguese here), by Public Radio International (Living on Earth), click here

Complete coverage summary: click here

16-Aug-2012

New high-tech ocean observers debut above ‘The Blue Serengeti’; ‘Shark Net’ app lets public follow tagged animals in real time

Monterey Bay, CA, August 16, 2012—A sleek, unmanned Wave Glider robot has been deployed off the US coast near San Francisco — the latest addition to an arsenal of ocean observing technologies revealing in real time the mysterious travels of great white sharks and other magnificent marine creatures.

The self-propelled wave and solar-powered glider is part of a new network of data receivers on fixed buoys that will pick up signals from acoustic tags on animals passing within 1,000 feet and transmit the data to a research team on shore, led by Stanford University Marine Sciences Prof. Barbara Block.

The long-lasting, relatively inexpensive acoustic tags and the local array of both fixed and mobile ocean transmitters will fine tune 12 years of insights gleaned from satellite-connected tags used to follow thousands of animals throughout their entire Pacific journeys.

Dr. Block and her team are on a mission to create a “wired ocean” where live feeds of predator movements are relayed by a series of “ocean WiFi hotspots” on moored buoys and self-propelled Wave Gliders carrying acoustic receivers.

The technology is central to Dr. Block’s “Blue Serengeti Initiative,” which builds on the Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP) project, part of the international Census of Marine Life (2000-2010).

News release in full: click here

Sample coverage: by The Scientist, click here; by Reuters, click here; by TIME, click here.  YouTube video of the Wave Glider launch, click here

Coverage summary, click here

Global ‘barcode blitz’ accelerates; 450 experts converge on Adelaide Nov. 28-Dec. 3

The newfound scientific power to quickly “fingerprint” species via DNA is being deployed to unmask quack herbal medicines, reveal types of ancient Arctic life frozen in permafrost, expose what eats what in nature, and halt agricultural and forestry pests at borders, among other applications across a wide array of public interests.

The explosion of creative new uses of DNA “barcoding” — identifying species based on a snippet of DNA — will occupy centre stage as 450 world experts convene at Australia’s the University of Adelaide Nov. 28 to Dec. 3.

DNA barcode technology has already sparked US Congressional hearings by exposing widespread “fish fraud” — mislabelling cheap fish as more desirable and expensive species like tuna or snapper. Other studies this year revealed unlisted ingredients in herbal tea bags.

Example coverage: Associated Press, click here; Canadian Press, click here, Agencia EFE (Spanish) click here

Coverage summary: click here

Full news release: click here

Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC

5 September 2011

Landmark global online collaboration now offers trusted information on 700,000+ species, 35 million+ pages of scanned literature, 600,000+ photos and videos

The second edition of the free, online collaborative Encyclopedia of Life debuts today with a redesign and new features making it easier to use, to personalize, and to interact with fellow enthusiasts worldwide.  It is also vastly expanded, offering information on more than one-third of all known species on Earth.

The new interface makes it easy for users to find organisms of interest; to create personal collections of photos and information; to find or upload pictures, videos and sounds; and to share comments, questions and expertise with users worldwide who share similar interests.

EOLv2 offers more than 20 times as many pages with content than the EOL.org launched 30 months ago — up from the original 30,000 pages in February 2008 to 700,000 today.  The global partnership of 176 content providers behind EOL.org is progressing towards an aspiration of 1.9 million pages — one for every species known to science.

It also now contains more than 600,000 still images and videos — 20 times the number available in August 2009. EOL photos are also showcased online at www.flickr.com/groups/encyclopedia_of_life.

Full news release text, click here

Sample coverage by The Guardian, click here, by Reuters, click here