00:03The Great Wall of China covers a vast area across East Asia, stretching some 13,171 miles.
00:10It has taken serious efforts by preservationists to maintain the ancient, more than two millennia-old structure.
00:16But now experts say there are other organic preservationists at work.
00:20Natural bio-crust that could be preventing many less monitored sections from crumbling.
00:24Researchers looked at a 400-mile section of the wall which straddles some of the driest areas of its expanse.
00:30They found a bio-crust of cyanobacteria, moss and lichen, or a fungus-algae composite organism, covering the ancient structure.
00:37They then looked underneath these living creatures, finding that while on the outside they may have looked considerably more lost
00:43to time than the human-preserved sections of the wall,
00:46beneath the bio-crust the wall was actually better preserved, less porous than other sections.
00:50With the researchers noting that while the bio-crust may have dug in somewhat to the bricking, it actually bounded
00:55together,
00:56with the binding outweighing any damage it did in the process, all while protecting it from wind and rain at
01:01the same time.
01:01With the researchers writing, quote,
01:03Thus, the protective function of bio-crust produced by their reduction of erodibility
01:07is much greater than the potential bio-deterioration caused by their biological weathering.
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