Was an ancient bacterium awakened by an industrial accident?

New species are generally found rather than awakened. And they are typically discovered in remote places like rainforests or Antarctic plateaus. But not so a species of bacterium described in a paper just published in Extremophiles. As Russell Vreeland and Heng-Lin Chui, the paper’s authors, point out, the bug is new to science. But it is not new to Earth. In fact the microbe may have been slumbering for millions of years before being awakened by an industrial disaster.

The bacterium in question lives below Lake Peigneur in southern Louisiana. The ground beneath the lake is rich in natural resources. In 1980 it boasted a mine producing rock salt, while a drilling rig run by Texaco was moving about on the surface looking for oil. But on November 20th, the two operations came together accidentally—and spectacularly. The oil rig’s drill penetrated the third level of the salt mine, creating a drain in the lake’s floor.