Chinese and US scientists have found microorganisms some 2000 meters under the surface of the Earth, who feed on iron ion and methane, top Chinese scientist Xu Zhiqin said in Beijing Saturday.

Chinese and US scientists made the finding through repeated biological experiments and study over drilling core samples obtained the ongoing continental scientific drilling program, Xu, head of the drilling program, told the ongoing assembly of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"Cultured in a series of media," she said, "two strains of living bacteria have been found in the drilling core."

"People used to think that there is no life inside rock, those bacteria living in the high temperature and anoxybiotic environment have broken down our tradition concept of life," she said.

From the spud on June, 2001 in Donghai county of east China's Jiangsu province, the continental scientific drill program has achieved a pilot hole close to 3,700 meters into the earth, providing valuable, continuous and fresher core, cuttings, fluid and gas samples as well as logging data.

Chinese scientists are ambitious "to establish an underground lateral section of microorganisms, since different living beings exist in different strata and our findings will be even more explosive than today," Xu said.

Source: Xinhua