Biomineralization of endolithic microbes in rocks from the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica: implications for microbial fossil formation and their detection

• Published in: Environmental Microbiology
• Main Authors: Wierzchos, Jacek, Sancho, Leopoldo García, Ascaso, Carmen
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2005
• Subjects: Commonwealth Glacier; McMurdo Dry Valleys; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1462-2920.2005.00725.x; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1462-2920.2005.00725.x; http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/j.1462-2920.2005.00725.x/fullpdf

Summary In some zones of Antarctica's cold and dry desert, the extinction of cryptoendolithic microorganisms leaves behind inorganic traces of microbial life. In this paper, we examine the transition from live microorganisms, through their decay, to microbial fossils using in situ microscopy (t...