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Fungus Beneath Us

WHOI microbiologist Ginny Edgcomb (background) studies organisms that live deep beneath the seafloor. In January 2016, Edgcomb was in the Indian Ocean aboard the drillship JOIDES Resolution, on the first of a multi-part mission to drill down to the Moho, the transition between Earth’s crust and mantle. The drill hole also provides access to Earth’s deep biosphere. Edgcomb and guest investigator Gaetan Burgaud from the University of Brittany (pictured) inoculated dishes with sediments from hundreds of feet below the seafloor to see what might be living down there. This dish yielded fungi that the team will analyze to determine whether it is an unknown species.(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)