Scientists have uncovered thousands of marine microbes -- including never-before-seen bacteria -- thriving deep in the sea near cracks in the Earth's crust where warm fluids and cold sea water mix, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

Using new DNA sequencing techniques,  researchers have identified as many as 37,000 different kinds of bacteria huddled near two hydrothermal vents on an underwater volcano off the Oregon coast.

Many of these bacteria had never been reported before.

Samples are from two hydrothermal vents on the Pacific deep-sea volcano, Axial Seamount.

You've got hot fluids that have things in it like hydrogen gas and sulfur, which are not things you find in abundance in regular sea water. They're mixing with this cold, oxygen-rich sea water. It creates a lot of neat niches for life,.

This research is part of an international effort to create a census of marine microbes, which make up as much as 90 percent of the total ocean biomass by weight.

Scientists looked at 900,000 of these genes, a massive undertaking that allowed her to arrive at an estimate of the number of microbes in the sample.

They found the samples were dominated by epsilon Proteobacteria, which are found in many different places on Earth including the human gut, and have been known to lurk around hydrothermal vents.

And while the two samples were taken just a few miles (kilometers) apart on the same volcano, they have totally different chemistries and population structures.

Microbes make living on Earth possible. They produce the oxygen we breathe. They have been on this planet for 3.5 billion years.