Ancient Microbes In The "Deadest" Part Of Earth Redefine Boundaries Of Life

Excerpt:

Imagine you're running a 5K race — but instead of a route that loops, you run the distance in a straight line from start to finish. Now, conceptualize that, instead of traveling horizontally, you're running straight down, burrowing into the Earth.

That's how far beneath the ocean's surface scientists dug to explore whether life can persist in ancient sediment — a region that was previously believed to be lifeless. They found not only life but whole communities of microbes that have lived for more than 100 MILLION YEARS.

Before you all get excited like I did lol, these microbes seem to be ancestors of the original microbes. Scientists are unsure how these microbes survive with such (if any) little energy or food, essentially they are starving.

No doubt like you all, I immediately started thinking about the possibilities in our neighbourhood (and beyonds') celestial bodies.

Source:
www.inverse.com...

a reply to: FinallyAwake

lived for more than 100 MILLION YEARS.

where do these numbers come from?


wiki radiocarbon dating

Carbon dating is unreliable for objects older than about 30,000 years, but uranium-thorium dating may be possible for objects up to half a million years old, Dr. Zindler said.

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

wiki "most accurate method of dating fossils"

Radiocarbon dating
One of the most widely used and well-known absolute dating techniques is carbon-14 (or radiocarbon) dating, which is used to date organic remains. This is a radiometric technique since it is based on radioactive decay

I'm starting to be a "flat earther", how are these ages determined?

originally posted by: TheConstruKctionofLight
a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

wiki "most accurate method of dating fossils"

Radiocarbon dating
One of the most widely used and well-known absolute dating techniques is carbon-14 (or radiocarbon) dating, which is used to date organic remains. This is a radiometric technique since it is based on radioactive decay

I'm starting to be a "flat earther", how are these ages determined?

I'm not a scientist and I'm just sharing the article.

Flat earthers openly deny logic and geometry, are you prepared to do the same?

I would appreciate if you just answer that question alone please, as I am definitely not going to debate flat earth with you. I've already researched both sides of the conspiracy.

Cheers 🍻

a reply to: FinallyAwake

I mentioned flat earth as a joke. I can't find how scientists date anything older than 50,000 years.

Try it for yourself

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

Carbon 14 dating is based upon a consecutive level of barometric pressure that results in a standard breakdown of carbon to carbon 14. It is accurate only as long as the air pressure remains current. Now here is the issue. Giant dinosaurs, and insectiods required a highly enriched oxygen environment in order to actually breath. (Think of the brontosaur or ants the size of cats, or millipedes the size of cars. Due to their shear size, while its possible they had a highly developed oxygen intake system, a more plausible theory is that instead of the 20.8% amount of oxygen we have in the system today, we actually had a much higher level of oxygen. Oxygen is 8 on the periodic table and Nitrogen is 7. So lets say we had a 30/40% level of oxygen in our environment vs the current. This would dramatically screw up the levels of carbon 14 dating the further back we go. As someone said above, the further back you go with C-14, the more inaccurate it is. Oxygen levels, impacted by tree growth, ocean heating/cooling/, solar flares, asteroids, volcanoes, earth quakes, ice ages, etc can all impact the level of oxygen to change levels globally, and regionally. While I don't dispute the world is ancient, and yes things did live a LONG time ago. I do dispute c-14 and the methodology of using it as a point of reference. It should be considered a guestimate and a range should be considered. The best example I can give is objects that should not exist during time frames that were carbon dated. (Hammer in coal) or pipes in ancient earth. Both have plausible reasons for why they are there, however the C-14 dating would place them @ 1 million years or 120 million years, when the reality is a volcano could have caused a hammer to set in coal, or people could have set the pipes a long time ago. Meaning humans are a little older than we think.

As far as the discovery, this is cool, do i think they are that old, probably not, but ya they have definately been around a while.


Camain

a reply to: camain

Cool. So the biggest conspiracy of all time is that we don't have an accurate method of dating anything older than 50,000 years.

Where do they get these wild figures?

"Such and such happened 50 mill years ago, then something else happened 2 million years ago?"

originally posted by: TheConstruKctionofLight
a reply to: FinallyAwake

I mentioned flat earth as a joke. I can't find how scientists date anything older than 50,000 years.

Try it for yourself

Lol you numpty I totally fell for that 😂 👍🏼

I'm pretty sure they didn't say it definitely was that old, but are speculating it could well be.

🍺

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

Here is the hammer:
en.wikipedia.org...

www.youtube.com...

About more earth
insh.world...

I would say that carbon dating is relatively accurate going back 50-200k years. However nobody was around before then, and therefore we don't really know how the atmosphere was. I saying that given dinosaurs existed, that ancient earth had more oxygen, and going further back, that and screw up c-14 the further back you go.

Not trying to attack you, and if I came across as that, sorry, its early on the east coast, haven't had coffee yet. Just trying to have a discussion.

I myself am agnostic, but I spent the last 2 years of high school in a fundamentally baptist school. I learned their concepts of the 6000 year old earth, and basically ripped that apart back then. That said some of their arguments do have minor merits.

Camain

originally posted by: TheConstruKctionofLight
a reply to: camain

Cool. So the biggest conspiracy of all time is that we don't have an accurate method of dating anything older than 50,000 years.

Where do they get these wild figures?

"Such and such happened 50 mill years ago, then something else happened 2 million years ago?"

Hmmmmm were you 'really' joking about the flat earth after all?? 🤔

originally posted by: TheConstruKctionofLight
a reply to: camain

Cool. So the biggest conspiracy of all time is that we don't have an accurate method of dating anything older than 50,000 years.

Where do they get these wild figures?

"Such and such happened 50 mill years ago, then something else happened 2 million years ago?"

To be fair, we can pretty accurately judge the sky.
The speed of light we've got down to a proper science, and the lights in the sky are so far away that we wouldn't even notice most of them missing if something happened.

originally posted by: TheConstruKctionofLight
a reply to: camain

Cool. So the biggest conspiracy of all time is that we don't have an accurate method of dating anything older than 50,000 years.

Where do they get these wild figures?

Exactly. Mainstream scientific theory is a house of cards.

a reply to: camain

Its cool I didn't take it as an attack. About that hammer. Being from Western Australia I have read how some opportunists melt gold to make a natural looking nugget ( higher resale value than the gold ).

For a while I have been trending to the view that there was a period where man and Dinosaur coexisted. I dont however believe the Earth is only 6000 years old.

Here's a cool site that'll keep you reading for hours.

www.stolenhistory.org...

a reply to: FinallyAwake

about flat earth yes. But not about the dating conundrum

a reply to: a325nt

Sure I get that about the speed of light. But to say things are millions of years old with no science to back it?

There are more methods than radiocarbon dating used, especially when examining geological strata, ejecta, etc. Uranium series, fission track, luminescence, cosmogenic nuclides, magnetostratigraphy... many methods. By determining the geological material age, whatever is found in it can also be dated.

Should scientists be messing with ancient microbes? What other remarkable things might they be able to do besides live in the deadest part of the earth.

originally posted by: oriondc
There are more methods than radiocarbon dating used, especially when examining geological strata, ejecta, etc. Uranium series, fission track, luminescence, cosmogenic nuclides, magnetostratigraphy... many methods. By determining the geological material age, whatever is found in it can also be dated.

The problem is you can never know the initial concentrations. Without knowing the initial ratio of the radioactive material, you are left to speculation and cannot accurately determine age.

originally posted by: DanDanDat
Should scientists be messing with ancient microbes? What other remarkable things might they be able to do besides live in the deadest part of the earth.

Sure, why not? 2020 isn't over yet. Digging up a few harmless dino-crobes shouldn't be a big deal. I mean... What could happen that 2020 hasn't alread..... I'll shut up now

then I happened....the END! a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight