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A hodgepodge of crystal - clear laguna and immense salt plain in Argentina ’s Puna de Atacama desert forms an otherworldly ecosystem unlike " anything any scientist has ever seen , " researchers say .
The never - before - seen lagoons legion hillock of rock layered with microbes that , at first glance , resemble some of the first jazz form of animation on Earth . Researchers discovered this miss cosmos by chance after spotting a meshing of unusual consortium on planet mental image of the desert in northwest Argentina .
Green mounds of stromatolites flourish at the bottom of a lagoon in Argentina’s Puna de Atacama.
Puna de Atacama is a jumbo plateau more than 12,000 feet ( 3,660 meters ) above sea level on the Argentinian boundary line with Chile . There , mellow EL , bone - dry condition and blazing sunshine combine to form a rough surroundings where few plant life and animals endure .
Brian Hynek , an associate prof of geological sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder , andMaria Farías , a microbiologist and cobalt - founder of the environmental consultancy PunaBio , hiked several mi through the free landscape painting before they find out the laguna .
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Hynek used a rock hammer to crack open a stromatolite formation, revealing a pink center.
" It ’s unlike anything I ’ve ever seen or , really , like anything any scientist has ever seen , " Hynek said in astatement .
Twelve pools of shallow , lucid weewee ringed with lot make up the newfoundalien ecosystem , which unfold across 25 Acre ( 10 hectares ) of desert , accord to the command . Beneath the lagune ' surface , the research worker espy small hills carpet with greenish microbial growth .
" It ’s just awful that you could still find undocumented things like that on our satellite , " Hynek said , adding that the discovery constitutes " the biggest eureka mo I ’ve ever had in my life . "
The living pitcher , which measured some 15 feet ( 4.6 m ) across and several feet gamy , offer a window into the early stage of animation on Earth and potentially even ancientlife on Mars , Hynek said . Preliminary observations indicate they could be stromatolites — complex communities of microbes whose excretions solidify into layer of rock — alike to those that existed during a stop of Earth ’s chronicle called the Archaean ( 4 billion to 2.5 billion age ago ) , when the atmospherecontained no oxygen .
Stromatolites still form today in various leatherneck and freshwater habitat , but they grow much smaller than their ancient counterpart . The hummock in the Atacama lagune were close in size of it to Archaean stromatolites , whichfossil discoveriesindicate grew up to 20 feet ( 6 m ) high . The Atacama stromatolites were mostly made of gypsum — a mineral common in fossilized stromatolites , but absent from forward-looking model .
" We think these hill are in reality grow from the germ , which is what was happening in the oldest I , " Hynek said .
The mountainous formations — soaked in the lagoons ' piquant , acidic waters and broil by utmost solar radiation — host two eccentric of bug , with layer of photosynthetic bacteria called cyanobacteria coating the exterior , and communities of individual - celled organisms be intimate as archaea thriving at the core .
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" If life ever evolved on Mars to the point of fossils , it would have been like this , " Hynek said . " understand these innovative community on Earth could inform us about what we should look for as we look for similar feature of speech in the Martian rock ‘n’ roll . "
But researchers will have to play tight if they want to confirm these initial observation , as the site has been take to mine for lithium .
" This entire , unique ecosystem could be go in a subject of years , " Hynek said . " We ’re hoping that we can protect some of these website , or at least detail what ’s there before it ’s gone or stir up perpetually . "
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