They exhibit metabolic properties which are compatible with the sub surface environment in which they are found. That's absolutely right, down to a certain depth. So, those 11,000 strains, as you say, many of them have not been studied in detail. They are archived. They have students working away trying to understand all the things these organisms can do and how they are genetically related to the more common surface organisms that we find around us where we live.
Major paradigm shift there - major, major paradigm shift.
And I should emphasize at this point that Tommy Gold has probably been the biggest proponent of this very early on. Then you realize that in a planet like Mars where all the evidence points to an environment very similar to earth's 4 billion years ago - that life near or on the surface of Mars implicitly means that life existed beneath the surface of Mars. And even though Mars has chilled down and lost a large proportion of its atmosphere and developed a kilometer big zone of ice beneath its surface - there's almost the probability that life exists beneath the surface of Mars is extremely high. Gaining their energy from minerals and inorganic nutrients and things. They are not used to competing with all the viruses and bacteria that exist in ourselves.