In a lake so poisonous its water is like battery acid, scientists were surprised to find microbes of all kinds—bacteria, algae, protozoa and fungi—living and thriving.
Now researchers are studying these microbes to see if they make products that could be used as medicines. Other scientists are researching whether the microbes could help reclaim the lake water, making it clean enough for city and recreational use.
Could a Toxic Lake Yield Life-Saving Microbes?
The lake near Butte, Montana, was created when a mining company shut down its copper mine and stopped the mechanisms that kept water from filling its 1.5 mile-wide pit. The water that filled the pit is so polluted with metals and minerals that for years the engineers who monitored the pit assumed no living creature could possibly survive there. Migrating geese that landed in the lake at night would be dead by the next morning! So how could a bunch of microbes survive?
Microbes can be incredibly resilient. Some may have blown into the water as spores—dormant microbes encased in a hard coating. Others may have been in the water or the pit's soil when it was flooded. It has been more than 17 years since the lake formed and to microbes, which reproduce very quickly, 17 years equals thousands of generations. In that time, microbes likely developed mutations that helped them better survive in the acidic water. Some can no longer live outside of the poisonous lake. See the page on microbial mutations for more details on how mutations can form and help creatures survive.
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