Zixibacteria was proposed as a bacterial phylum following the recovery of a genome from representative RBG-1.[1] This genome was recovered using genome-resolved metagenomics from sediment samples of an aquifer adjacent to the Colorado River (CO, USA) and was suggestive of metabolically versatility, which is presumably requisite for life in a rapidly changing environment such as aquifer sediments[1]
Since being proposed as a phylum in 2013, members of the Zixibacteria phylum have been detected in a variety of other environments (sometimes retroactively), including subsurface sediments (WA, USA),[3] estuary water (NC, USA),[4] moonmilk cave deposits (Comblain-au-Pont, Belgium),[5] and deep subsurface fracture fluids from a gold mine (SD, USA)[6]
