Astrobiological field campaign to a volcanosedimentary mars analogue methane producing subsurface protected ecosystem: Imuruk Lake (Alaska)

Viking missions reported adverse conditions for life in Mars surface. High hydrogen signal obtained by Mars orbiters has increased the interest in subsurface prospection as putative protected Mars environment with life potential. Permafrost has attracted considerable interest from an astrobiological...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advances in Astronomy
Main Authors: Gómez-Gómez, Felipe, Prieto-Ballesteros, Olga, Fernández-Remolar, David, Rodríguez-Manfredi, José Antonio, Fernández-Sampedro, M. Teresa, Postigo Cacho, Marina, Torres-Redondo, Josefina, Rodríguez, N., Gómez-Elvira, Javier, Amils, Ricardo
Other Authors: CSIC-INTA - Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España)
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: 2011
Subjects:
Bering Land Bridge
permafrost
Alaska
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/127123
https://doi.org/10.1155/2011/953936
https://doi.org/10.13039/501100003329
Description
Summary:Viking missions reported adverse conditions for life in Mars surface. High hydrogen signal obtained by Mars orbiters has increased the interest in subsurface prospection as putative protected Mars environment with life potential. Permafrost has attracted considerable interest from an astrobiological point of view due to the recently reported results from the Mars exploration rovers. Considerable studies have been developed on extreme ecosystems and permafrost in particular, to evaluate the possibility of life on Mars and to test specific automated life detection instruments for space missions. The biodiversity of permafrost located on the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve has been studied as an example of subsurface protected niche of astrobiological interest. Different conventional (enrichment and isolation) and molecular ecology techniques (cloning, fluorescence >in situ> probe hybridization, FISH) have been used for isolation and bacterial identification. The expedition to Imuruk Lake was supported by Centro de Astrobiologia-INTA (Spain). The laboratory experimental procedures were supported by Grant AYA 2010–2013 “Desarrollo de Tecnología para la identificación de vida de forma automática” from the Spanish Government. Peer Reviewed

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