underwater landslides<\/a> at a depth of at least 180 meters.<\/p>\n\n\nAs Martindale points out, such structures should not exist in such a deep-sea environment. Chemical analysis of the rocks showed a high carbon content, which confirms their biological origin. Scientists have concluded that these ancient microbes were chemosynthetics: they received energy not from the sun, but through chemical reactions of sulfur or other compounds.<\/p>\n\n\n
Underwater landslides could create a breeding ground for them, bringing organic material from the continental shelf. Microbial communities flourished in the intervals between these events, and then some of their traces were preserved forever under new layers of sediment.<\/p>\n\n\n
This discovery is forcing scientists to reconsider their approach to searching for the earliest forms of life on Earth. It indicates that traces of ancient life could have been preserved not only in shallow waters, but also in deep-sea sediments, which significantly expands the search area and gives new hope for important discoveries.<\/p>\n\n\n
Source: Live Science<\/p>\n\n\n
Image: Francesco Riccardo Iacomino<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paleontologists have discovered fossilized traces of ancient microbes in the mountains of Morocco in a place that completely changes ideas about the conditions for the origin and preservation of early life on Earth. These 180-million-year-old structures were located at depths where sunlight could not penetrate. The ama<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":43666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"Traces of ancient life found where they were not expected - in deep-sea sediments of Morocco","_seopress_titles_desc":"Scientists have discovered fossilized structures in Morocco created by microbes 180 million years ago at great depths. Read how this changes the search for ancient life.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59428","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","category-geologiya"],"acf":[],"pbg_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/starinnye-mikrobnye-maty-marokko-issledovanie.webp",1200,675,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/starinnye-mikrobnye-maty-marokko-issledovanie-150x84.webp",150,84,true],"medium":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/starinnye-mikrobnye-maty-marokko-issledovanie-300x169.webp",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/starinnye-mikrobnye-maty-marokko-issledovanie-768x432.webp",768,432,true],"large":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/starinnye-mikrobnye-maty-marokko-issledovanie-1024x576.webp",1024,576,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/starinnye-mikrobnye-maty-marokko-issledovanie.webp",1200,675,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/starinnye-mikrobnye-maty-marokko-issledovanie.webp",1200,675,false],"bricks_large_16x9":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/starinnye-mikrobnye-maty-marokko-issledovanie.webp",1200,675,false],"bricks_large":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/starinnye-mikrobnye-maty-marokko-issledovanie.webp",1200,675,false],"bricks_large_square":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/starinnye-mikrobnye-maty-marokko-issledovanie.webp",1200,675,false],"bricks_medium":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/starinnye-mikrobnye-maty-marokko-issledovanie-600x338.webp",600,338,true],"bricks_medium_square":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/starinnye-mikrobnye-maty-marokko-issledovanie-600x600.webp",600,600,true]},"pbg_author_info":{"display_name":"Yulia Frolova","author_link":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/author\/giulia-nikolaevna\/","author_img":false},"pbg_comment_info":" No Comments","pbg_excerpt":"Paleontologists have discovered fossilized traces of ancient microbes in the mountains of Morocco in a place that completely changes ideas about the conditions for the origin and preservation of early life on Earth. These 180-million-year-old structures were located at depths where sunlight could not penetrate. The ama","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/59428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/59428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}