Dallol ponds: the limit of life in hyperacid, hypersaline environments
Charcos de Dallol: límite de la vida en ambientes hiperácidos y salinos
- Date
- 2019 · confidence high
- Place
- Dallol, Afar, Ethiopia
- Credited to
- Jodie Belilla, Purificación López-García, David Moreira and team
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
In the hot, very acidic (pH near 0) and salty ponds of the Dallol volcano no life was detected, while microbes do occur in nearby, less extreme waters. It set a habitability boundary useful for searching for life on Mars.
Published by Belilla and colleagues (Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2019). The authors caution that absence of evidence does not rule out life elsewhere in the complex; later work has debated contamination and sampling extent.
What it led to
- limits of life under combined pH, temperature and salt
- analogues for Martian and Europan environments
- studies of life in hypersaline lake brines