This article was originally featured on MIT Press Reader. This article is excerpted from James Lawrence Powell’s book “Mysteries of the Deep“. When HMS Challenger set sail in 1872, some scientists ...

Ancient microbial activity preserved in wrinkled seafloor sediments challenges assumptions about where traces of early life can survive.

Life thrives far beneath the surface, in places once thought too harsh for survival. In the shadows of Earth’s crust, tiny organisms persist in darkness, pressure, and scarcity. This hidden world ...

Newly discovered worlds of microbes far beneath the ocean floor, inside old basaltic rocks, could point to a greater likelihood of life elsewhere in the universe. Microbial life, almost unbelievably ...

Discover a vast, previously unknown world of microbial life that survives—and even thrives—for hundreds of millions of years in some of the planet's harshest environments. Subscribe to our newsletter ...

Researchers studying the deep biosphere, Earth’s largest ecosystem, have found evidence that life thriving miles below the planet’s surface may have played a far bigger role in shaping atmospheric ...

How slow can life go? How deep? At what point does biology become geology? Dig down and you will find some answers. If you go to the bottom of the ocean, first drill and drill and drill until you ...