Life thrives in the deepest, darkest recesses of Earth鈥檚 crust鈥攆rom methane seeps in the ocean floor to the highest reaches of Arctic permafrost鈥攁nd it is unlike anything seen on the surface. Intraterrestrials shares what scientists are learning about these strange types of microbial life鈥攁nd how research expeditions to some of the most extreme locales on the planet are broadening our understanding of what life is and how its earliest forms may have evolved.
Drawing on her experiences and those of her fellow scientists working in challenging and often dangerous conditions, Karen Lloyd takes readers on an adventure from the bottom of the ocean through the jungles of Central America to the high-altitude volcanoes of the Andes. Only discovered in recent decades, 鈥渋ntraterrestrials鈥濃�攕ubsurface beings that are truly alien鈥攁re demonstrating how life can exist in boiling water, pure acid, and bleach. They enable us to peer back to the very dawn of life on Earth, disclosing deep branches on the tree of life that push the limits of what we thought possible. Some can 鈥渂reathe鈥� rocks or even electrons. Others may live for hundreds of thousands of years or longer. All of them are living in ways that are totally foreign to us surface dwellers.
Blending captivating storytelling with the latest science, Intraterrestrials reveals what microbes in Earth鈥檚 deep subsurface biosphere can tell us about the prospects for finding life on other planets鈥攁nd the future of life on our own.
"Lloyd is one of those rare gifted writers who can be as broadly profound as she is precise, able to make science both come raucously alive and resonate with meaning. She does this via perfect metaphors, an effortless wit, and a massively infectious enthusiasm for the outsize significance of her very small subjects. This science book is, furthermore, part adventure story, as she travels to the ends of the earth to pursue her small subjects, and generally bears witness to 'the shocking enormity of what we have been missing about life on Earth."鈥�Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"Lloyd, an environmental studies professor at the University of Southern California, debuts with an astonishing study of the remarkable microorganisms that thrive in the 'subsurface biosphere.' . . . Filled with mind-blowing trivia that will change how readers think about life on Earth, this captivates."鈥�Publishers Weekly, starred review
"[A] must-read."鈥擬ark Martin, Matters Microbial
"The central question Lloyd poses in her fascinating exploration of underground microbial ecology—are there life-forms hiding inside Earth that are so strange that they change our conception of life itself?—is easily answered. Yes!"鈥擳ony Miksanek, Booklist
“Intraterrestrials is an astonishing, exhilarating, mind-bending journey into the hidden living world deep beneath our planet’s sunlit surface. Lloyd is a master storyteller and unrivaled expert in sharing the thrills and challenges of diving to the ocean floor, sampling near active volcanoes, and dodging polar bears on rapidly thawing permafrost. Read this book and prepare to enter a living realm beyond your wildest imagination.”—Robert M. Hazen, author of The Story of Earth
“Forget Ewoks, tribbles, and Daleks. Fictional extraterrestrials seem quite ordinary compared with the truly bizarre organisms living beneath our feet: microbes that thrive in physical and chemical extremes, ‘breathe’ rocks—and outlive humans. Karen Lloyd’s Intraterrestrials will forever change your understanding of what it means to be alive on Earth.”—Marcia Bjornerud, author of Timefulness and Turning to Stone
“Karen Lloyd’s innovative research will change the way that readers think about life on Earth. She tells extraordinary stories about hidden ‘intraterrestrials’ that live in the rocks beneath our feet and transports us from volcanic jets to deep ocean vents to Arctic permafrost. I have long defined my own research on the unexplored rainforest canopy as the eighth continent, but Lloyd’s world ranks far beyond that, perhaps as a tenth planet. I loved reading every page!”—Meg Lowman, author of The Arbornaut
“In Intraterrestrials, Karen Lloyd takes readers on the exciting quest to understand biodiversity’s last frontier: microbial life within the earth. Part Indiana Jones, part Louis Pasteur, Lloyd engagingly explains the challenging fieldwork and sophisticated lab research that together are revealing the subterranean biota and showing why it matters.”—Andrew H. Knoll, author of A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters
“As we search for life elsewhere in the universe, there is much still to learn about the life beneath our feet. In a narrative that combines the principles of thermodynamics with breathtaking, all-action adventure, Lloyd ventures from the high Arctic to deep-sea hydrothermal vents in pursuit of the limits of life. This is one of the most exciting books I have read in ages.”—Henry Gee, author of A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth
