Microbes are thriving in surprising numbers at the deepest spot in the oceans, the 36,000-foot Mariana Trench in the Pacific, despite crushing pressures in sunless waters, scientists said.
Dead plants and fish were falling as food for microscopic bugs even to the little-known hadal depths, parts of the seabed nearly 19,000 and named after Hades, the god of the underworld in Greek mythology, they said.
The presence of life in the trench also shows how the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, vital for the growth of tiny marine plants at the ocean surface, can eventually get buried in the depths in a natural process that slows climate change.
