There are ‘death pools’ at bottom of Red Sea which can kill anything ‘immediately’. Scientists warn…
Miami, United StatesEdited By: PrishaUpdated: Sep 02, 2024, 04:04 PM IST
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Image of the dead pool at the bottom of the Red Sea. Photograph:(Others)
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The dead pools in the Red Sea are inhospitable and can instantly kill any animal which reaches into their waters. They are hypersaline with zero oxygen
Scientists have warned that the Red Sea’s darkest depths may be hiding the mystery of the origins of life after making a stunning discovery of ‘death pools’ at its bottom.
A team of researchers from the University of Miami reached the bottom of the Red Sea, which lies between the Arabian Peninsula and Africa, and found dense, salty lakes called “death pools”.
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As alarming as the name sounds, so is the nature of “death pools,” which are the most extreme environments on Earth.
The rare pools, which get formed on the seafloor, are hypersaline (which means unimaginably salty) in nature and with zero oxygen.
These pools are inhospitable and can instantly kill any animal that reaches their waters.
Also Read: Are deep seas on Earth hiding alien life amid ‘dark oxygen’? Study hints so
However, these pools have living microbes, which gives insights into how life started on our planet and how living beings can evolve on water-rich worlds.
“Our current understanding is that life originated on Earth in the deep sea, almost certainly in anoxic — without oxygen — conditions,” said Sam Purkis, who is a professor of marine geosciences at the University of Miami and led the study, while speaking to Live Science.
“Deep-sea brine pools are a great analogue for the early Earth and, despite being devoid of oxygen and hypersaline, are teeming with a rich community of so-called ‘extremophile’ microbes,” Purkis said.
“Studying this community hence allows a glimpse into the sort of conditions where life first appeared on our planet, and might guide the search for life on other ‘water worlds’ in our solar system and beyond,” he added.
‘Death pools’ can lead to creation of novel medicines: Study
“If that weren’t enough, the pools could also yield microbial discoveries that could lead to the development of novel medicines,” Purkis further said.
“Molecules with antibacterial and anticancer properties have previously been isolated from deep-sea microbes living in brine pools,” he added.
In the entire world, scientists have found only a few dozen deep-sea brine pools, which range in size from a few thousand square feet to around a square mile (2.6 square kilometres), as per Live Science.
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