The seafloor off the coast of Chile is carpeted with bacterial - TopicsExpress



          

The seafloor off the coast of Chile is carpeted with bacterial mats of gigantic proportions. They cover an area as large as that of the state of Alabama. Their total weight is of the order of 100 million tons, which probably makes this the largest single species microbiome on Earth. The mats consist of huge filamentous bacteria of the genus Thioploca — sulfur oxidizers that live within a sheath that can be as long as 15 cm. The bacteria themselves are quite large, around 60 µm in length and are arranged end to end within the sheath to form very long filaments..
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 17:00:02 +0000

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