There are places underground that can store large volumes of CO2 gas. These places are the nearly infinite number of tiny holes inside of rocks. The underground rocks form layers that go on for many kilometers in all directions and can be many meters thick. These layers are called aquifers. Aquifers contain water that can move around freely through the rocks, through the tiny holes. When the CO2 gas is injected into one of these aquifers, it can be stabilized so that it does not "leak" back into the atmosphere. The CO2 is stabilized when it becomes trapped inside the tiny holes of the rocks. Big outdoor experiments have shown that these aquifers can remain stable over long periods of time.
However, very little is known about how the CO2 affects the microbes that live underground. Microbes are microscopic organisms, including bacteria, which are the type of microbe we investigated in our experiments. It is important to understand how bacteria respond to underground CO2, because, through their metabolism, the bacteria can change the CO2 into a more harmful greenhouse gas called methane.

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