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Permafrost is abundant across northern parts of the world, covering almost a quarter of the land<\/a> in the Northern Hemisphere.<\/p>\n Permafrost is not just frozen dirt: it\u2019s a deep freezer for ancient life, containing plant remains, animal bones, and trillions of microbes that have been preserved in place since the Ice Age<\/a>.<\/p>\n As the world heats up, that icy ground is melting, now revealing what has been frozen for millennia.<\/p>\n Dormant microbes in permafrost<\/p>\n In a recent study, researchers ran an experiment to see what happens when you take ancient permafrost and thaw it out. They didn\u2019t just want to look at it. They wanted to see if anything inside was still alive.<\/p>\n The team collected permafrost samples from a tunnel in central Alaska, where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers<\/a> has been digging into frozen ground for research.<\/p>\n The tunnel is about 350 feet long and wide enough to walk through. You can see bison<\/a> bones and even mammoth<\/a> remains sticking out of the walls. And it smells really bad; like a damp basement that\u2019s been closed off for decades.<\/p>\n \u201cTo a microbiologist, that\u2019s very exciting because interesting smells are often microbial,\u201d said Tristan Caro, lead author of the study and a former graduate student in geological sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder<\/a>.<\/p>\n The team added water to the ancient samples and let them sit at 39 and 54 degrees Fahrenheit; temperatures you might find during an Alaskan summer. Then they waited.<\/p>\n Awakening of permafrost microbes<\/p>\n At first, the microbes<\/a> barely moved. \u201cIn the first few months, these colonies grew at a creep, in some cases replacing only about one in every 100,000 cells per day,\u201d Caro explained.<\/p>\n That\u2019s incredibly slow. For comparison, most bacteria in a lab can multiply in a matter of hours. But by six months in, things started to shift. Some of the microbes began to form visible, slimy structures called biofilms.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are not dead samples by any means,\u201d Caro said. \u201cThey\u2019re still very much capable of hosting robust life that can break down organic matter and release it as carbon dioxide.\u201d<\/p>\n Ancient microbes release gases<\/p>\n Caro and his team weren\u2019t just trying to grow ancient microbes for fun. They were trying to understand how these old organisms could affect Earth\u2019s future<\/a>. <\/p>\n When microbes break down old plants and animals, they release gases, especially carbon dioxide and methane. Both are major contributors to global warming.<\/p>\n Right now, climate change<\/a> is speeding up permafrost thaw across Alaska, Siberia, and other northern regions. <\/p>\n As this frozen ground melts, all the stuff trapped inside it, including ancient life, starts to shift, break down, and release carbon into the air.<\/p>\n Thawing ground and climate change <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s one of the biggest unknowns in climate responses,\u201d said Sebastian Kopf, professor of geological sciences at CU Boulder. <\/p>\n \u201cHow will the thawing of all this frozen ground, where we know there are tons of carbon stored, affect the ecology of these regions and the rate of climate change?\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s a question scientists are racing to answer. The study found that even if microbes take months to become active after thawing, they eventually wake up. <\/p>\n \u201cYou might have a single hot day in the Alaskan summer, but what matters much more is the lengthening of the summer season to where these warm temperatures extend into the autumn and spring,\u201d Caro said.<\/p>\n More definitive answers needed<\/p>\n The study raises some big questions. Are the microbes the same in different regions? Will they all act the same way? What else could be hiding in the ice?<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s so much permafrost in the world, in Alaska, Siberia, and in other northern cold regions,\u201d Caro said. \u201cWe\u2019ve only sampled one tiny slice of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Permafrost isn\u2019t just frozen dirt. It\u2019s alive. And as the Arctic heats up, the slow awakening of ancient life could speed up the climate problems we\u2019re already facing.<\/p>\n The full study was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.\u00a0<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microbes are waking up beneath Alaska\u2019s permafrost \u2013 frozen ground made up of soil, ice, and rock. 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