A halophile is an organism that lives in an environment that has a high salinity such as ocean and solid salt crystals. Halophiles are found thriving in habitats with a high concentration of salt, such as in the Great Salt Lake in Utah and Owens Lake in California.

Where are Halophilic Archaeans found?

Halophilic Archaea (or Haloarchaea) thrive in environments with salt concentrations approaching saturation, such as natural brines, alkaline salt lakes, the Dead Sea and marine solar salterns.

What environment do Halophiles live?

Halophiles are chemo-organotrophic Euryarchaeota that are often the predominant organisms in salt lakes, pools of evaporating seawater, solar salterns and other hypersaline environments with salt concentrations as high as halite saturation (e.g., Oren, 2002).