An international team of scientists claims to have identified two deep-sea microbe groups that produce amorphous carbon, a kind of elemental carbon. “This is the first report of amorphous carbon being produced by any organism on Earth,” says Virginia Tech biochemist and paper coauthor Robert White in a press release, adding that the team is “very interested in the possible implications it may have for the carbon cycle.”
“We never thought that amorphous carbon could be produced by living organisms because of the normally extreme chemical reactions that are needed to form it,” he adds.
Elemental carbon contains only carbon atoms, in contrast to molecules associated with life, in which carbon is linked to other elements such as hydrogen and oxygen. It exists in many different forms, from crystalline diamonds formed under high pressure and temperature to the black, powdery amorphous carbon in soot. In all previously known cases, its ...
