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Project Progress

This last year saw significant progress on several related projects. We published a paper on the carbon isotopic fractionation in Prokaryotes. We also had several publications related to Leg 201 of the ocean drilling program related to the subsurface microbial ecosystem. Finally, we have papers in press in Geobiology and Astrobiology. The former paper uses genomics to deduce the most geologically plausible early metabolism for the Archaea. We have also continued to make great progress in studying trace metals in microbial communities, exploring tungsten extraction by Pyrobaculum aerophilum, exploring trace anaerobic methane oxidation in methanogens, observing oxygen tolerance by Methanosarcina, and creating a gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) method for analyzing the carbon isotopic composition of ribonucleic acid (RNA).