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Report on Movila Cave (Romania)
Jan 5, 2006
Report on Movila Cave (Romania)
wizard@lefo.sfos.ro
http://www.nazaretti.org/standreu/general/activitats/celebracions/altres/telematica/aigua/movila1.htm
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In 1986 a group of Roumanian scientists working near the Black Sea stumble upon the one of the greatest discoveries of the century.

Cristian Lascu was inspecting a series of 6 testing wells thet there were built for a power station. He found in the sixth well a small hole smelling like sulf. In the last part of the passage was a sulfurous lake with lot of animals thet there were different form other animals in other caves in Roumania.

Cristian Lascu knew that this place was unique. The life from here it shouldn't be there. Where this bizzare animals came from, how they can survive in this hostile enviroment.

The cave had a real network of underwater gallerieswith narrow passages.
 
Lascu and his friends had to dive in it. They found that this underworld is hostile for man and animals and that there's no light for plants to grow in it. In other caves the animals that were living in it were using the food brought inside by water, but in Movila cave it was something different: the life was too variated and rich. The cave was holding the very secret of the origins of life on Earth.

While diving into the underground lake C. Lascu and his friend (a biologist) found two air bells. In the first air bell they found in the water many animals like never before. The surface of the second air bell was covered by a milky scum. Yhe scum was organic material. The air here wasn.t good for breath, the atmosphere was poisoned by heavy gases like H2S and exces of CO2. Lascu noticed that as less air it was the more bugs were living on the walls of the cave.

The white scum was composes by microorganisms. In the cave Lascu found lot of different species. There were 5 species of spiders alone, all of them endemic (living only in Movila cave). The cave contains the most complex ecosystem in the world. It holds 33 new species of invertebrates. No other cave contained so many endemic species as Movla cave does.

The main difference between Movila cave's animals and their close relatives at the surface are the absence of eyes, the absence of pigment and the elongation of their antenas and legs.

There was a kind of water scorpion. This animal diverged from it's surface relatives 5.5 milions years ago.

The cave's wood life is blind and transparent with very elongated antenas and it likes high CO2 concentration and a low level of oxygene.
There were found up to 200 specimens per square metre.
 
All animals are tide into a food chain based on a microorganisms from the white scum. C. Lascu couldn't find any input of water that could bring food into the cave.

C. Lascu had elaborate a theory that while all the waters from Roumania are containing an izotop from the Cernobil disaster the water from the cave should have it too but he didn't found any so he supposed that the cave is still isolated. The water was coming from a reservoir deep underground were had been stores for 25000 years. It was chemicaly and biologicaly sterile.

The animals were not getting their food from outside they were living in a sulf content underworld totaly different from the planet we know.
The microorganisms were using chemical reaction to produce food. The absence of sun light results in absence of photosyntesis and the food must be produced by other mecanism. Using the chemical energy from the oxydation of H2S and amonium the microorganisms produced their food by chemosysntesis.

The microorgansisms are forming the white scum that floates on the surface of the cave's waters. The scum provides food for the snails, worms, wood life and shrimps that become the prey for spiders, leeches and water scorpions that are the hunters at the top of the food chain.

There is a complete sulf sustained life system never met on the Earth before.
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Posted: Jan 5, 2006 6:17am

 
 
 
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