Earth to Mars: A Protocol for Characterizing Permafrost in the Context of Climate Change as an Analog for Extraplanetary Exploration
Permafrost is important from an exobiology and climate change perspective. It serves as an analog for extraplanetary exploration, and it threatens to emit globally significant amounts of greenhouse gases as it thaws due to climate change. Viable microbes survive in Earth's permafrost, slowly me...
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Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10510695/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37566539 https://doi.org/10.1089/ast.2022.0155 |
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:10510695 2023-10-09T21:55:07+02:00 Earth to Mars: A Protocol for Characterizing Permafrost in the Context of Climate Change as an Analog for Extraplanetary Exploration Miner, Kimberley R. Hollis, Joseph Razzell Miller, Charles E. Uckert, Kyle Douglas, Thomas A. Cardarelli, Emily Mackelprang, Rachel 2023-09-01 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10510695/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37566539 https://doi.org/10.1089/ast.2022.0155 en eng Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10510695/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37566539 http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/ast.2022.0155 © Kimberley R. Miner, et al., 2023; Published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. Astrobiology Research Articles Text 2023 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1089/ast.2022.0155 2023-09-24T00:58:03Z Permafrost is important from an exobiology and climate change perspective. It serves as an analog for extraplanetary exploration, and it threatens to emit globally significant amounts of greenhouse gases as it thaws due to climate change. Viable microbes survive in Earth's permafrost, slowly metabolizing and transforming organic matter through geologic time. Ancient permafrost microbial communities represent a crucial resource for gaining novel insights into survival strategies adopted by extremotolerant organisms in extraplanetary analogs. We present a proof-of-concept study on ∼22 Kya permafrost to determine the potential for coupling Raman and fluorescence biosignature detection technology from the NASA Mars Perseverance rover with microbial community characterization in frozen soils, which could be expanded to other Earth and off-Earth locations. Besides the well-known utility for biosignature detection and identification, our results indicate that spectral mapping of permafrost could be used to rapidly characterize organic carbon characteristics. Coupled with microbial community analyses, this method has the potential to enhance our understanding of carbon degradation and emissions in thawing permafrost. Further, spectroscopy can be accomplished in situ to mitigate sample transport challenges and in assessing and prioritizing frozen soils for further investigation. This method has broad-range applicability to understanding microbial communities and their associations with biosignatures and soil carbon and mineralogic characteristics relevant to climate science and astrobiology. Text permafrost PubMed Central (PMC) Perseverance ENVELOPE(162.200,162.200,-76.800,-76.800) Kya ENVELOPE(8.308,8.308,63.772,63.772) Astrobiology 23 9 1006 1018 |
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Research Articles |
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Research Articles Miner, Kimberley R. Hollis, Joseph Razzell Miller, Charles E. Uckert, Kyle Douglas, Thomas A. Cardarelli, Emily Mackelprang, Rachel Earth to Mars: A Protocol for Characterizing Permafrost in the Context of Climate Change as an Analog for Extraplanetary Exploration |
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Research Articles |
description |
Permafrost is important from an exobiology and climate change perspective. It serves as an analog for extraplanetary exploration, and it threatens to emit globally significant amounts of greenhouse gases as it thaws due to climate change. Viable microbes survive in Earth's permafrost, slowly metabolizing and transforming organic matter through geologic time. Ancient permafrost microbial communities represent a crucial resource for gaining novel insights into survival strategies adopted by extremotolerant organisms in extraplanetary analogs. We present a proof-of-concept study on ∼22 Kya permafrost to determine the potential for coupling Raman and fluorescence biosignature detection technology from the NASA Mars Perseverance rover with microbial community characterization in frozen soils, which could be expanded to other Earth and off-Earth locations. Besides the well-known utility for biosignature detection and identification, our results indicate that spectral mapping of permafrost could be used to rapidly characterize organic carbon characteristics. Coupled with microbial community analyses, this method has the potential to enhance our understanding of carbon degradation and emissions in thawing permafrost. Further, spectroscopy can be accomplished in situ to mitigate sample transport challenges and in assessing and prioritizing frozen soils for further investigation. This method has broad-range applicability to understanding microbial communities and their associations with biosignatures and soil carbon and mineralogic characteristics relevant to climate science and astrobiology. |
format |
Text |
author |
Miner, Kimberley R. Hollis, Joseph Razzell Miller, Charles E. Uckert, Kyle Douglas, Thomas A. Cardarelli, Emily Mackelprang, Rachel |
author_facet |
Miner, Kimberley R. Hollis, Joseph Razzell Miller, Charles E. Uckert, Kyle Douglas, Thomas A. Cardarelli, Emily Mackelprang, Rachel |
author_sort |
Miner, Kimberley R. |
title |
Earth to Mars: A Protocol for Characterizing Permafrost in the Context of Climate Change as an Analog for Extraplanetary Exploration |
title_short |
Earth to Mars: A Protocol for Characterizing Permafrost in the Context of Climate Change as an Analog for Extraplanetary Exploration |
title_full |
Earth to Mars: A Protocol for Characterizing Permafrost in the Context of Climate Change as an Analog for Extraplanetary Exploration |
title_fullStr |
Earth to Mars: A Protocol for Characterizing Permafrost in the Context of Climate Change as an Analog for Extraplanetary Exploration |
title_full_unstemmed |
Earth to Mars: A Protocol for Characterizing Permafrost in the Context of Climate Change as an Analog for Extraplanetary Exploration |
title_sort |
earth to mars: a protocol for characterizing permafrost in the context of climate change as an analog for extraplanetary exploration |
publisher |
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10510695/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37566539 https://doi.org/10.1089/ast.2022.0155 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(162.200,162.200,-76.800,-76.800) ENVELOPE(8.308,8.308,63.772,63.772) |
geographic |
Perseverance Kya |
geographic_facet |
Perseverance Kya |
genre |
permafrost |
genre_facet |
permafrost |
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Astrobiology |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10510695/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37566539 http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/ast.2022.0155 |
op_rights |
© Kimberley R. Miner, et al., 2023; Published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1089/ast.2022.0155 |
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Astrobiology |
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23 |
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9 |
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1006 |
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1018 |
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