n a cold December day in 1998, I was swimming in my survival suit in the Trondheim-fjord, Norway, practicing for the offshore certificate. The certificate would give me access to one of the oceanic drilling installations of StatoilHydro, among the biggest offshore oil and gas companies in the world. As part of the company's research program, we were looking for bacterial strains that could be useful in the oil industry. Obtaining samples of these oil-loving microbes would allow us to start culturing and genetically characterizing the life that survives high temperature oilfields - a venture I hope could one day revolutionize the oil industry.
Until only a few years ago, the majority of researchers doubted the possibility of any living matter in oil reservoirs that were sealed off for 200-500 million years. Despite the discovery of hyperthermophilic life in Yellowstone geysers as early as the 1960s, ...
