Microbes are living at pH 12 — roughly the alkalinity of bleach — inside mud volcanoes on the Mariana forearc, and there are so few of them that DNA testing fails to find them at all; researchers had
Scientists have discovered microbial life thriving in highly alkaline mud volcanoes in the Mariana forearc. Because the pH levels are so extreme, researchers had to use lipid biomarkers instead of DNA to confirm the presence of life.
Why it matters
This discovery expands our understanding of the limits of life on Earth and provides new methods for detecting biological signatures in extreme environments.
Life persists in conditions so extreme that DNA itself becomes undetectable—forcing scientists to hunt for microbes through the molecular ghosts they leave behind.
Deep in the Mariana forearc, the stretch of seafloor west of the Mariana Trench, mud volcanoes vent fluid so alkaline it sits close to pH 12, roughly the alkalinity of household bleach. When a team of geoscientists tried to confirm whether anything was living in that mud using standard DNA sequencing, the tests came back essentially empty. Not because the sediment was sterile, but because there was so little biological material present that conventional genetic methods could not pick up a signal.
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