According to the identification results, microbial communities actually existed in sediments for more than 6.5438+0 million years. Microorganisms are almost everywhere on the earth. Why do microbial communities found in the deep sea attract scientists' attention? Before analyzing these deep-sea microorganisms, we first need to understand the deep-sea environment and how deep-sea sediments are formed. Internationally, the sea area with a depth of more than 200 meters is called deep sea, which is still a certain gap from the sea area with a depth of several thousand meters known by ordinary people.
But the deep-sea environment also has the same characteristics, that is, there is almost no light, high air pressure, low water temperature, high salinity and many sediments. Few fish can survive in the deep sea, and researchers usually see small organisms and microorganisms in the deep sea. The sources of deep-sea sediments can be divided into terrestrial materials and marine materials. Deep-sea sediments in the ocean generally come from various organisms living in the ocean, most of which are the remains of plankton.
It is found that most soluble minerals will dissolve under the action of deep-sea environment, and then eventually sink to the bottom of the sea. However, the Japanese team has not yet figured out how the collected deep-sea sediments were formed, but the microorganisms in them really surprised the researchers. In general, sediments with a history of millions of years do not contain much nutrients, because the organic matter in sediments has been lost through chemical decomposition and seawater erosion.