Wu-LeeAug 15, 2018

Earth: mostly harmless. 80% veggies 15% germs 4.7% mushrooms, slime.

An estimate of the world's biomass composition today, from a paper summarised here:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/humans-make-110000th-earths-biomass-180969141/

And to corroborate your point:

"Finally, we highlight that the mass of humans is an order of magnitude higher than that of all wild mammals combined and report the historical impact of humanity on the global biomass of prominent taxa, including mammals, fish, and plants."

@risabee @Antanicus https://social.coop/media/RLZVWC0twjK23YfnEGo

Humans Make Up Just 1/10,000 of Earth's Biomass

Plants make up 80 percent, but human activity chopped that number in half over the last 10,000 years

Smithsonian Magazine
Show threadHenry Edward HardyAug 16, 2018

@wu_lee @Antanicus @[email protected]

40% of ocean biomasss estimated to be archaea (which are not "germs" ie bacteria).

Adding deep earth archaea, we can estimate more than 50% of earth biomass is archaea.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature07174

Show threadWu-LeeAug 16, 2018

@hhardy01, So admit I took a liberty and lumped archaea, protists and viruses in with "slime" for the sake of a pithy statement.

Bar-On's paper says "note that several of the results should be interpreted with caution due to the large uncertainty associated with some of the estimates, mostly those of total terrestrial protists, marine fungi, and contributions from deep subsurface environments."

However, I see it does reference Lipp et all in the supplemental info.

@risabee @Antanicus

Show threadHenry Edward HardyAug 16, 2018

@wu_lee @Antanicus @[email protected]

Yes.

"The subsurface ‘deep biosphere’ represents one-tenth to one-third of Earth's total global present-day biomass."

http://jgs.lyellcollection.org/content/early/2018/07/06/jgs2018-061

The deep history of Earth's biomass

The subsurface ‘deep biosphere’ represents one-tenth to one-third of Earth's total global present-day biomass. The rest is dominated by land plants, a relatively recent development in geological history. Before c. 400 Ma, a relatively low surface biomass with high productivity and fast turnover supplied carbon to a deep biosphere with high biomass but low productivity and slow turnover. Here, we argue that the deep biosphere outweighed the surface biosphere by about one order of magnitude for at least half of the history of life on Earth. This result offers a new perspective on the history of life on Earth with important implications for the search for life on other worlds. Scientific editing Graham Shields-Zhou

Show threadWu-LeeAug 16, 2018

"We argue that the deep biosphere outweighed the surface biosphere by about one order of magnitude
for at least half of the history of life on Earth."

So Earthlings were mostly subterranean slime; now just a significant fraction of us are.

@hhardy01
@risabee @Antanicus

Show threadHenry Edward HardyAug 16, 2018

@wu_lee @Antanicus @[email protected]

Gold also had what I think of as the "ancient astronauts' garbage dump" theory of life on earth's beginning.

Gold, T. "Cosmic Garbage," Air Force and Space Digest, 65 (May 1960)

Show threadWu-LeeAug 17, 2018

I notice that paper on the "Deep history of Earth's biomass" is authored this year by an #Edinburgh University astrobiologist...

http://jgs.lyellcollection.org/content/early/2018/07/06/jgs2018-061

https://seanmcmahon.co.uk/

@hhardy01 @risabee @Antanicus

The deep history of Earth's biomass

The subsurface ‘deep biosphere’ represents one-tenth to one-third of Earth's total global present-day biomass. The rest is dominated by land plants, a relatively recent development in geological history. Before c. 400 Ma, a relatively low surface biomass with high productivity and fast turnover supplied carbon to a deep biosphere with high biomass but low productivity and slow turnover. Here, we argue that the deep biosphere outweighed the surface biosphere by about one order of magnitude for at least half of the history of life on Earth. This result offers a new perspective on the history of life on Earth with important implications for the search for life on other worlds. Scientific editing Graham Shields-Zhou

Show threadWu-LeeAug 17, 2018

Also: one of Sean McMahon's creations is a picture of the "Tully Monster",

http://www.biosphereonline.com/2016/04/16/mystery-tully-monster/

WTF 😱

Tullymonstrum was once an actual thing, remnants thereof found in modern Illinois.

A pioneer of that new and tiny fraction of the non-slime Earthling population, of which we are a very very recent development. Like, very.

@Antanicus @risabee @hhardy01

Show threadHenry Edward Hardy

@wu_lee @[email protected] @Antanicus

When I saw the picture of the Tullymonstrum I thought "that looks like a lamprey" and I guess that's what some experts think too. It's weird looking but not as weird as Hallucigenia.

And of course there's Tardigrades.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-Z9Ssgb0Kg

Hallucigenia: The worm with the missing head

YouTube
Aug 17, 2018 at 1:39pmWeb