Meet the Endoterrestrials

Re:Meet the Endoterrestrials by vanderZwan on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @07:12AM (#18282354)

> Templeton is one of a growing number of scientists who believe that the Earth’s deep subsurface is brimming with life. By some estimates, this unexplored biosphere may contain anywhere from a tenth to one-half of all living matter on Earth.

I know the emphasis should be "some", but even then this is a lot of biomatter. How do they come to that number?

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Re:Meet the Endoterrestrials by Sharlin on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @08:53AM (#18282913)

Volume vs. surface area. The life more familiar to us is concentrated to what amounts to a 2D surface. Oceans are mostly devoid of life excluding surface waters where sunlight is available and seabed ecosystems.

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Re:Meet the Endoterrestrials by gilleain on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @09:35AM (#18283226)

One of the first people to consider this was Thomas Gold (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gold), for example http://www.pnas.org/content/89/13/6045.

There's a nice review here (http://www.pnas.org/content/114/27/6895) but it doesn't have much detail.

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Re:Meet the Endoterrestrials by Tepix on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @08:16AM (#18282674)

There's a lot of space down there. From what we learn about life is that it will fill every available niche.

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