Some lakes in Canada look like the oceans on our planet that existed some 2.5 billion years ago, when microbial life thrived in an oxygen-free environment. And what's living in those lakes today could help scientists understand what early life forms on Earth were like, too, an important piece of the puzzle in understanding how all of us came to be.
A new study in Scientific Reports describes lakes in northern Canada's Boreal Shield that are similar to oceans during the Archean Eon period, when microbial life on Earth was still in a primordial stage, and could exist essentially without oxygen.
These microbes will be useful in studying the formation of harmful algal blooms, like the one that temporarily shut down a Lake Erie water treatment plant in 2014. Microbes are believed to metabolize iron compounds with the help of sunlight, and iron plays an important role in algal bloom formation.
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