courtesy of Craig Moyer | WWU

Craig Moyer, an associate professor of biology at WWU, is conducting undersea research on the Loihi Seamount, near the Big Island of Hawaii.

by John Thompson | WWU

Deep under the ocean's surface, where cracks in the Earth's crust have created superheated oases of microbial life, one type of tiny microbe is doing something long thought to be impossible: eating and breaking down iron.

"Unlike the vast majority of organisms, which break down carbon molecules to turn into energy, these microbes are consuming the iron that comes out of these vents. We suspected that this could be done, and now, the discovery of these microbes and how they live has proven it," said Western Washington University's Craig Moyer, an associate professor of biology. "These creatures basically harness the rust process to convert iron into energy."

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Moyer has encountered vast mats of these microbes in his undersea exploration of areas on the Loihi Seamount, near the Big Island of Hawaii.

"Some of these vents and seeps can be incredibly fertile areas teeming with unique life," he said. "Others, because of what comes out of the vents, were long thought to simply be ‘dead zones,' but these microbes are disproving that. In addition, their iron-eating abilities point us down a metabolic pathway that helps show us how modern microbes evolved, and what early life on this planet was like."

Moyer's research is funded by a five-year, $2-million National Science Foundation grant. Later this year, he will be leading another oceanographic expedition with WWU undergraduate and graduate students on the University of Washington's research vessel, the R/V Thomas G. Thompson, with as many as 20 other scientists from seven other institutions. He will also be using the remotely operated vehicle Jason II from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution as the primary means of sampling and exploration.