Okuma AnlamaSoru #11121
Life in the Deep Biosphere
For decades, biologists assumed that life was largely restricted to Earth's surface and the sunlit layers of the ocean. However, deep scientific drilling programs into continental rocks and oceanic crust have revealed a subterranean realm known as the "deep biosphere." Thousands of meters beneath the surface, under crushing lithostatic pressures and scorching temperatures exceeding one hundred degrees Celsius, billions of microorganisms flourish. Deprived of solar photons and atmospheric oxygen, these lithoautotrophic bacteria and archaea subsist on chemical energy released by serpentinization—a reaction between groundwater and minerals—and the radioactive decay of deep crustal isotopes. Remarkably, many of these subsurface microbes possess sluggish metabolic rates, dividing only once every several thousand years, effectively operating in near-geological timescales. The term "sluggish metabolic rates" in the final sentence implies that these organisms ----.
- A)require constant feeding from decaying plant matter
- B)die immediately upon encountering any mineral nutrients
- C)move rapidly through porous granite fractures like fish
- D)generate vast amounts of heat that melt surrounding bedrock
- E)consume energy and divide at extraordinarily slow intervals
Cevabı ve çözümü göster
Doğru cevap: E) consume energy and divide at extraordinarily slow intervals
Çözüm: "Sluggish metabolic rates" metabolizmalarının son derece yavaş olduğunu ve binlerce yılda bir bölündüklerini ifade eder. Doğru cevap E'dir.