Scientists went 1,000 meters down into a cave and found weird microbes with 'dark' DNA that we’ve never seen before.
March 20, 2026
Original Paper
A Thousand Meters Deep: Vertical Profiling of the Subterranean Microbiome of Gourgouthakas Cave
bioRxiv · 10.64898/2026.03.19.712943
The Takeaway
Exploring one of the deepest caves on Earth, scientists discovered bacteria that have evolved in total isolation. Over 50% of the genetic instructions these microbes use to create chemicals showed zero similarity to any known biological data, representing a massive untapped frontier for discovery.
From the abstract
Introduction: Caves represent unique, nutrient-limited windows into the deep biosphere, yet the microbiology of the deep terrestrial subsurface remains remarkably under-explored. In this work, we took advantage of a rare expedition into Gourgouthakas Cave (Crete, Greece), one of the deepest vertical systems in the world, which had remained untouched by humans for 19 years. Methods: We performed a high-resolution vertical profiling of the microbiome by sampling rock surfaces across nine different