EXOBIOLOGY: THE SURVIVAL ABILITY OF HALOPHILES UNDER MARTIAN CONDITIONS

• Main Authors: Students Huitung Chu, William Sheng, Advisors David, C. Gan, Lawrence Kuznetz
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; South Pole; Ice; permafrost; South pole
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.143.9902; http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/reports/CB-1152/berkeley-1.pdf

The recently developed Odyssey gamma-ray spectrometer (GRS) has detected high concentrations of hydrogen, which strongly indicates there is permafrost and water ice in the upper meter of soil in the South Pole region of Mars. This finding presents the possibility that halophilic (salt loving) Archea might be present in its ice. It is possible that there may be areas of saline ice on Mars, since saline is found in Arctic ice. Halophiles are known to survive well under adverse conditions and have possibly lain dormant since the Upper Permian (250 million years) in salt deposits (2, 3, 7, 9). Consequently, two halophiles isolated from San Francisco Bay salt ponds were selected to determine if they could survive the severe Martian conditions. To date, they have survived at least 8 months under experimental conditions. Future experiments will include dormant halophilic isolates from Lake Searles red salt crystals and Upper Permian Berchtesgaden rock salt.