Reading Explorer 1, Unit 6: Under Yellowstone

Narrator:
What do people think of when they hear the words Yellowstone National Park? Elk? Bison?
Bears? The famous wolves?

Perhaps, but one group of scientists is interested in things that are a little bit smaller. And they
are looking in a strange place - in Yellowstone’s hot springs.

Mark Young:
“There’s far more biodiversity in a hot spring, any of these hot springs than there is of all the
animals combined in Yellowstone.”

Narrator:
According to John Varley, Yellowstone center for resources, people who come to Yellowstone,
don’t realize how extreme the environment is in the hot springs.

The hot springs are extremely hot. The water can reach temperatures of over 200 degrees Celsius
as it begins to rise up from far below.

Here at the Earth’s surface, however, it’s a somewhat cooler 75 degrees Celsius. For the
microbes that live in this environment, this is perfect.

According to Tim McDermott, Thermal Biology Institute, this is the ideal environment for the
microbes, in fact, if you remove the microbes from this environment they stop growing and even
die.

The things that live here aren’t like any other type of life on earth. When scientists first
discovered life in Yellowstone’s hot springs in the late 1960s, they placed all of these microbes
into two main groups – the Eukarya and the Bacteria.

But in the mid-1970s, scientists discovered a new group of organisms. They called this new
group Archaea. Archaea was a new branch on the tree of life. But it was only new to us.

Scientists soon discovered that Archaea is one of the earliest kinds of life. And Archaea may
provide information about what early life forms on Earth were like. It may even help show us
how life evolved on our planet.

According to Anna Louise, microbiologist, Portland State University, all of these microbes are
important to life as we know it. Without microbes, we would die. Our planet cannot survive
without them. But if we took away all the plants and animals we see around here, such as bison
and elk and wolves, the microbes would simply move, change a little, and continue to thrive.

And Archaea can survive almost anywhere. In fact, they have for millions of years. Earth’s early
atmosphere consisted of gases that aren’t very common in our atmosphere today. But these gases
are found in Yellowstone’s hot springs.
According to McDermott, these environments can help us understand life on earth and therefore
this national park attracts scientists from all over the world. He also thinks that the life forms
found in the water may help us prove that we are not alone in the universe.

But can the study of microbes at Yellowstone really tell us much about the possibility of life
elsewhere? Many people think so. One of the main reasons why scientists come to Yellowstone
is to study this group of life so that they can understand what these microbes tell us about life
beyond Earth. If scientists are able to find microbes on a place like Mars, it would help to answer
a lot of these questions.

Tim McDermott
“If they find evidence that at one time, microorganisms were indeed active on a place like Mars,
then that would be a profound discovery. I mean, if life can exist in t hose geyser basins, it could
probably exist anywhere out there in the universe. “

Narrator:
As we continue to explore Mars, we are hoping to find signs of life there - life that may be very
similar to the microbes at Yellowstone.

As scientists search for life beyond Earth, they will continue to study this very unearthly
environment and the strange life forms that live here.