France on Worldcrunch's site (original) (raw)

RENNES — Hell, the netherworld or even just “the bad place” — this is hardly good advertising for the underground realm, a space rich in microorganisms and vital to many of our basic needs. Still, despite its importance, the study of what exists deep below the ground is still in the early stages.

But now to advance this effort, a new research site under France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) has opened in Rennes, Brittany: an experimental hall dedicated to environmental sciences, with a particular focus on the microbiology of underground spaces.

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This laboratory boasts ceilings 30 feet high, yet the most fascinating discoveries lie beneath researchers' feet. This unique European facility features boreholes that plunge more than 300 feet underground, explains Dimitri Lague, director of the Rennes Observatory.

The need to study soils and subsoils has become a global focus, most recently at last month's COP16 conference on desertification and soil degradation, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. According to a United Nations report released the next day, droughts driven by climate change and unsustainable water and soil management could affect 75% of the global population by 2050.

Restoring soils unfit for cultivation — an important climate buffer that absorbs CO2 — could cost more than $310 billion annually, according to the report.

In Rennes, the Environmental Science Observatory focuses on topics such as the effects of soil artificialization on water flow and sediment transport, or the chemical pollution affecting subsoils and water tables, such as pesticide residues and PFAS, so-called "forever chemicals" with harmful effects on human health.