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...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advances in Astronomy
Main Authors: F. Gómez, O. Prieto-Ballesteros, D. Fernández-Remolar, J. A. Rodríguez-Manfredi, M. Fernández-Sampedro, M. Postigo Cacho, J. Torres Redondo, N. Rodríguez, J. Gómez-Elvira, R. Amils
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2011
Subjects:
Astronomy
QB1-991
Bering Land Bridge
permafrost
Alaska
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1155/2011/953936
https://doaj.org/article/e0aa399babbb4a58a85c876431cc00a8
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.

Similar Items