PARIS, May 15: Scientists said on Wednesday they had found life-giving chemicals in water at least 1.5 billion years old, which they are now combing for signs of microscopic organisms surviving from a prehistoric age.

The water, isolated in pockets deep underground for billions of years, is now pouring out of boreholes from a mine 2.4 kilometres beneath Ontario, Canada, they wrote in the journal Nature.

“This water could be some of the oldest on the planet and may even contain life,” the team said in a statement.

Not only that -- the similarity between the rocks that trapped the fluid and those found on Mars raised hopes that similar life-sustaining water could be buried deep inside the Red Planet, they said.

“The findings... may force us to rethink which parts of our planet are fit for life,” they added.

The British and Canadian researchers analysed the water and found it was rich in dissolved gases like hydrogen and methane that are able to sustain microscopic life not exposed to the sun for billions of years, as is the case on the ocean floor.

The rocks around the water were dated about 2.7 billion years old, “but no one thought the water could be the same age, until now”, the team said.—AFP