Very interesting DISCOVER article this month [View All]

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"20,000 microbes under the sea"

It's about microbes that live under the sea floor, digesting dead plankton that fall from above and produce methane (same thing as natural gas). The methane is trapped by water and locked into a water-methane ice called clathrate. The mass of the methane in these clathrates may be greater than all known fossil fuel reserves.

These microbes (archaea) live very slowly, dividing once every 1,000-10,000 years or so, and are among the most ancient life still present on the planet. They also are suspected to make up a third (by mass) of all living matter on the planet.