Trilobites: Something Digs Intricate Tunnels in Garnets. Is It Alive?

> At first, normal wear-and-tear on the surface of a garnet creates divots. Microorganisms, probably fungi, can colonize these hollows. Then, if the stone is the best nearby source for certain nutrients, such as iron, perhaps they use an as-yet mysterious chemical reaction to burrow deeper, harvesting sustenance as they go.

Tunnels like those reported in the article also appear in sand and small rocks in biologically active regions (eg, soil). Some of the theories are the same: The holes are consistent with fungal hyphae ('roots').

I don't think anyone has found a smoking gun yet, and I'm not sure how you can explain finding the same patterns in deep geological formations. But I think they may be trying to answer the same question.

Here is a wild and unprofessional speculation.

Silicon is often considered as a potential substitute for carbon in speculative discussions of alternatives to carbon-based life. Since this is such bizarre behavior for a non-carbon environment, why not, at least in the privacy of one's mind, consider silicon-based automata as the active agent? One might even consider wether they might be called life.

To speculate publicly would be ridiculed, but in an open-minded forum such as Hacker News, maybe we could indulge ourselves if just for entertainment.

More realistically, the problem is the disposal of waste products.