Microbes on EARTH Magazine

Hot but not bothered: Warm soils favor microbes with small genomes

Thu, 07 Feb 2019 16:17:08 -0500

A stretch of abandoned road in Centralia, Pa., where a subterranean coal seam fire has been burning for decades, altering conditions in overlying soils. Credit: courtesy of MSU

Centralia, Pa., sits above rich subterranean coal seams, which made the town a mining center for about a century. In 1962, the seams were accidentally ignited by burning garbage, turning the coal from a commodity into a liability. Nearly 57 years later, the ground beneath Centralia is still smoldering.

Going subterranean: Repurposed mines become innovative labs

Mon, 15 Oct 2018 10:13:05 -0400

A technician works inside a roughly 500-cubic-meter neutrino detector during its construction in April — one of two liquid argon detectors being built at the European Organization for Nuclear Research's (CERN) facility near Geneva, Switzerland. Known together as ProtoDUNE, the detectors at CERN are prototypes of four larger versions to be built at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) — housed in the former Homestake Gold Mine near Lead, S.D. — as part of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). Credit: CERN.

The headframe of the historic Soudan Iron Mine on a frigid day in northern Minnesota. The mine, which ceased operations in 1962, is now operated as a state park and also hosts scientific research. Credit: Josh Knackert.

At about 5 a.m. on a frigid, icy February day in northern Minnesota — the kind of day when it feels like your eyeballs might freeze — a group of about 10 undergraduates in a geobiology course at the University of Minnesota-Duluth jumped onto a bus, headed for a destination far more temperate and out of the elements — or, rather, deep below the elements. Joined by their professors, microbiologist Cody Sheik and geologist Latisha Brengman, as well as a few others (including yours truly), the students arrived, two hours later and still before daybreak in the Minnesota Northwoods, at the visitor center and museum for the historic Soudan Iron Mine. The mine began operations in 1882 as an open pit mine, but moved underground about 20 years later and ceased mining in 1962.

Ice (Re)Cap: July 2018

Tue, 05 Jun 2018 17:08:53 -0400

The icebreaker CCGS Amundsen breaks a path through the Arctic in October 2010. Credit: Canadian Coast Guard, CC BY-ND 2.0.

From Antarctica to the Arctic; from polar caps, permafrost and glaciers to ocean-rafted sea ice; and from burly bears to cold-loving microbes, fascinating science is found in every nook and crevasse of Earth’s cryosphere, and new findings are announced often. Here are a few of the latest updates.

Microbes influence ooid formation

Wed, 18 Oct 2017 12:17:43 -0400

A thin section of ooids showing their concentric carbonate coatings. Credit: Strekeisen, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The formation of carbonate spheroids called ooids is a bit of a mystery. They are thought to form in warm waters saturated with carbonate, which combines with calcium to form concentric layers of calcium carbonate on shell fragments or sand grains. Some scientists have suggested that the presence of microbes might encourage calcium carbonate to precipitate out of water to form ooids in a process called organomineralization.

Microbes care about energy efficiency

Fri, 13 Oct 2017 13:48:20 -0400

Researchers found that archaea collected from this hot spring in Yellowstone National Park chose unexpectedly when offered a variety of food sources. Credit: Maximiliano Amenabar.

Microbes live in some of the most extreme environments on Earth, from the crushing depths of deep-sea trenches to scalding geothermal springs. Part of the reason microbes thrive in many different environments is their ability to use a variety of energy sources — including light, organic matter, and inorganic materials like hydrogen, sulfur, and iron — to power the metabolic reactions that allow them to grow and survive.

Red Planet Roundup: October 2017

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 11:45:46 -0400

A network of valleys, outlined in white, surrounds Lyot Crater in this computer-rendered illustration. New research suggests the water that carved these valleys likely melted from an ice sheet covering the area when an impact occurred. Credit: David Weiss/Brown/NASA.

With two rovers patrolling the surface of Mars, six spacecraft orbiting above it, and scientists here on Earth studying the Red Planet from afar, new findings are announced often. Here are a few of the latest updates.

Down to Earth With: Cave microbiologist Hazel Barton

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 10:47:10 -0400

Cave microbiologist Hazel Barton is a professor and the director of the Integrated Bioscience Program at the University of Akron in Ohio. Credit: Dave Bunnell.

In the early 1990s, when Hazel Barton was pursuing her doctorate in medical microbiology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, she enjoyed exploring caves as a hobby. She never imagined that she would one day incorporate caving into her career.

Ice (Re)Cap: July 2017

Mon, 19 Jun 2017 20:52:18 -0400

The Barnes Ice Cap (circled in red) on Canada's Baffin Island is one of the few remnants of the massive Laurentide Ice Sheet, which covered much of North America during the last ice age. Credit: Jeff Schmaltz/NASA Earth Observatory.

Looking for life in coldest, driest Antarctica

Thu, 21 Apr 2016 16:17:08 -0400

Researchers studying permafrost samples from University Valley in Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys region found no signs of active microbial life. Credit: Jacqueline Goordial.

Antarctica is nicknamed the “White Continent,” but one site — University Valley in the continent’s McMurdo Dry Valleys region — has remained virtually snow-free for more than 150,000 years, making it the coldest, driest desert on Earth. For the past four years, researchers involved in NASA’s ASTEP (Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets) program searched for signs of life in the valley because it is thought to closely resemble the northern polar regions of Mars where the Phoenix spacecraft landed in 2008. In a new study, though, the team reports that it came up empty-handed, confirming that University Valley is indeed one of the least-habitable places on Earth.

Subseafloor biosphere extended to greatest depth yet

Tue, 15 Dec 2015 10:38:45 -0500

Microbes cultured from a coal seam buried 2 kilometers below the seafloor off Japan are seen in this scanning electron microscope image at 5,000-times magnification. Credit: Hiroyuki Imachi, JAMSTEC.

Scientists studying sediments collected from the deepest scientific borehole ever drilled have found microorganisms living at astounding depths beneath the seafloor. Recent studies have previously found bacteria and archaea scratching out meager livings in marine sediments buried as deep as 1.9 kilometers, but the new find extends the known biosphere even farther down.

Ice (Re) Cap: August 2015

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 09:47:48 -0400

An eerie red ooze, rich in microbes and iron oxides (hence the color), issues from Blood Falls at the toe of Antarctica's Taylor Glacier. Credit: National Science Foundation/Peter Rejcek.

Great Lakes geologic sunken treasure

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

In the sinkholes of Lake Huron, researchers are finding microbial life more reminiscent of the life found in ocean hydrothermal vents than that in freshwater lakes. NOAA, courtesy of Thunder Bay Sinkholes 2008

Researchers sent the Phantom S2 ROV into one of the sinkholes. NOAA, courtesy of Thunder Bay Sinkholes 2008

The Great Lakes hold the secrets of hundreds of ill-fated voyages in their notoriously treacherous waters. Shipwreck enthusiasts find a bounty of nautical relics preserved in their chilly depths. Only within the last decade, however, have explorers and scientists begun to reveal the secrets of a much different — and ancient — sunken treasure in Lake Huron.