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Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 |
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Chain of crevicular habitats?
Towards the end of an article on the eerie blue holes of the Bahamas appears this intriguing paragraph:
"William Hart, of the Smithsonian Institution, and Tom Iliffe, of the Bermuda Biological Station, believe that blue holes are one link in a chain of crevicular habitats -- caves, fissures, rocks of the sea floor -- that stretches from one side of the ocean to the other, from the Americas, across the sea floor and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, to Africa and the Mediterranean. Related Amphipods are not only found in Bahamian caves but in marine caves in Bermuda, the Pacific, and the Yucatan Peninsula."
(Palmer, Robert; "In the Lair of the Lusca," Natural History, 96:42, January 1987.)
Comment. With this, the vision arises of an earth-girdling, biologically and geologically connected stratum of life that we know next to nothing about. How porous is the earth's crust, and how far down in these pores and interstices does life survive?