A study in blue : Secondary copper-rich minerals and their associated bacterial diversity in Icelandic lava tubes

• Published in: Earth and Space Science
• Main Authors: Kopacz, Nina, Csuka, Joleen Mary, Baqué, Mickael, Iakubivskyi, Iaroslav, Guðlaugardóttir, Hrefna, Klarenberg, Ingeborg J., Ahmed, Mahid, Zetterlind, Alexandra, Singh, Abhijeet, Kate, Inge L. ten, Hellebrand, Eric, Stockwell, Brent, Stefánsson, Árni B., Vilhelmsson, Oddur, Neubeck, Anna, Schnürer, Anna, Geppert, Wolf
• Other Authors: Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Natural Resource Sciences, School of Business and Science
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: Jarðefni; Gerlar; Hraun; astrobiology; Iceland; lava tubes; Mars; Martian analogs; speloethems; Environmental Science (miscellaneous); Earth and Planetary Sciences (all); Akureyri; Strauss; University of Akureyri
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11815/4528; https://doi.org/10.1029/2022ea002234

Funding Information: The Icelandic Speleological Society (ISS) was indispensable to this work, with in-depth knowledge of the terrain, and by doing their best to keep these caves in their pristine states by protecting them from human contamination by tourists or civilians, which is vital when collecting samples of microbial mats. Our guides Árni B. Stefánsson, Guðni Gunnarsson, and Ingólfur Páll Matthíasson were delightful to work with, and we thank them with the utmost reverence for their professionalism and for sharing these subterranean natural wonders with our team. Many thanks to Anett Blischke of the Icelandic GeoSurvey for constructing the geological map of Iceland in Figure 1. This work was supported by NWO ALWOP.274 and the University of Akureyri Research Fund (grant no. R1812). M.B. acknowledges the support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG – German Research Foundation) for the project “Raman Biosignatures for Astrobiology Research” (RaBioFAM; project number: 426601242) and of Geo.X, the Research Network for Geosciences in Berlin and Potsdam, for a travel grant. B.R.S. is an inventor of patents and patent applications involving small molecule therapeutics, co-founded and serves as a consultant to Inzen Therapeutics and Nevrox Limited, and serves as a consultant to Weatherwax Biotechnologies Corporation and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP. Funding Information: The Icelandic Speleological Society (ISS) was indispensable to this work, with in‐depth knowledge of the terrain, and by doing their best to keep these caves in their pristine states by protecting them from human contamination by tourists or civilians, which is vital when collecting samples of microbial mats. Our guides Árni B. Stefánsson, Guðni Gunnarsson, and Ingólfur Páll Matthíasson were delightful to work with, and we thank them with the utmost reverence for their professionalism and for sharing these subterranean natural wonders with our team. Many thanks to Anett Blischke of the Icelandic GeoSurvey for constructing the ...