Fossil Friday: microbes discovered deep underground remain virtually unchanged since 175 million years ago – ZME Science

New research has identified what’s very likely the tiniest living fossils so far — a group of microbes that feed off radioactive decay.
Abandoned tin mine in Vredehoek, Cape Horn, South Africa. Image credits jbdodane / Flickr.
The team, led by the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, an independent, non-profit oceanography research institute, reports that the microbes have been frozen, evolutionary-speaking, for millions of years. Finding such a case could upturn our current understanding of how…

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