nai

Project Reports

• Planetary Biology, Evolution, and Intelligence

  Chris Chyba, Cynthia Phillips, Kevin Hand- The project has two components. The first, an overview of the astrobiological potential of various geological features on Europa, is proceeding well — we are continuing the study of various proposed formation mechanisms for different feature types such as ridges, bands, and chaotic terrain.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 6.2 7.1

• Microbial Diversity and Population Structure Studies in the Rio Tinto

  We have begun analyzing data from a new molecular diversity survey method called SARST-V6 (Serial Analysis of Ribosomal Sequence Tags) applied to the October 2002 samples. With SARST, the PCR products from orthologous hypervariable regions (~100 bp long for the bacterial V6 region) in rRNA genes are ligated together to form large concatemers. Our SARST data are currently only available for bacteria. A total of 10,575 RSTs (ribosomal sequence tags) were BLASTED against the GenBank and RDP Databases

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.3 5.1 5.2

• Understanding How Psychrobacter Sp. 273-4 Is Able to Live in Siberian Permafrost

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 5.2 5.3

• Biosignatures in Chemosynthetic and Photosynthetic Systems

  During the past year, our team has made strong contributions in research, mission involvement, synergistic community activities, and education & public outreach.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1 4.1 5.1 5.2 6.1 7.1 7.2

• Design and Assembly of a Cavity-Ring Down Spectrometer for Determination of Concentration and Isotopic Composition of Methane in Gases

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1 3.2 3.3 4.1 5.2 5.3 6.2 7.1 7.2

• Subseafloor Basement (Basalt) Biosphere Studies

  Using UHNAI funds in 2004-2005, we began to acquire laboratory equipment and initiate the first environmental electrochemistry research effort at UH, making use of solid-state voltammetric sensors.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 4.1 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1

• Identifying Microbial Life at Crustal Rock-Water Interfaces

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 4.1 4.2 5.2 5.3 6.1 7.1

• Rapid Response to Remotely Detected Seafloor Eruptions

  May 2006 – Geophysicists aboard R/V Knorr during a recent cruise to the East Pacific Rise at 9° 51’ N suspected that a recent eruption may have occurred during attempted recovery of ocean bottom seismometers (OBS)

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1

• Permian-Triassic Extinction Scientific Drilling Project

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 4.1 4.2 5.2 5.3

• Examination of the Microbial Diversity Found in Ice Cores (Brenchley)

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 6.2

• Adaptation to Salinity in Microbial Communities

  Lake Tyrrell, Australia, has been identified as a site with considerable potential as a Mars analog (Benison and Laclair, Astrobiology, 2003). This periodically dry, pink, hypersaline lake (Figure 1) is located in northwestern Victoria, Australia

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1 4.1 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1

• Synergism, Evolution, and Functional Ecogenomics of Deep-Subsurface Microbial Communities Based on Molecular Analyses

  Planktonic microbes in anaerobic fracture water and biofilm microbial communities on aerobic rock surfaces were compared from the deep subsurface of the Witwatersrand Basin, South Africa. A deep-branching clade of nearly identical Firmicutes 16S rDNA sequences (>99% homology) has been identified as the dominant microorganism in fracture water from multiple gold mines of the Witwatersrand Basin, South Africa

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1

• Microbial and Biogeochemical Characterization of Terrestrial Analogue Sites for Life in the Subsurface of Mars.

  Onstott and McGown collected ground water from boreholes intersection fractures at depths of 890 and 1100 meters below the surface at the Lupin gold mine, Nunavat Territories March 2005 using 0.2 μm borosilicate filters and 0.2 μm hollow-fiber filters and running the borehole water through these filters for 2-3 day

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1 2.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 6.2 7.1

• Microbial Diversity in the Deep Ocean

  The world’s oceans are teeming with microscopic life forms. The evolution of marine microbes over billions of years predicts the composition of microbial communities should be much greater than published estimates of a few thousand distinct kinds of microbes/liter of seawater. By adopting a massively parallel tag sequencing strategy, we explored bacterial communities of deep water masses of the North Atlantic (Figure 1) and diffuse flows associated with the hydrothermal vents of Axial Seamount (Figure 2)

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 5.1 5.2

• Leigh Project

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.2 3.3 4.1 4.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1

• Origin of Multicellularity and Complex Land-Based Ecosystem

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.4 4.1 4.2 5.2

• Icelandic Subglacial Volcanic Habitats

  The Skaftárkatlar Caldera is formed by an active volcano under the ice, located on the Vatnajökull ice cap in Iceland. Through collaboration with Icelandic colleagues, Gaidos and Glazer participated on an expedition to drill through the ice cap and sample the underlying lake waters for geochemical and microbiological analyses.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1

• Geomicrobiology of Neutrophilic Iron-Oxidizing Bacteria at Loihi Seamount

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1

• Experimental Study of Radiolytic Oxidation of Pyrite: Implications for Mars-Relevant Crustal Processes

  In subsurface environments, radiolysis can produce gradients of both electron acceptors and electron donors that are possible sources of metabolic energy [2]. Radiation-induced chemical reactions have particular significance in geologic environments where molecular oxygen derived from the atmosphere is a negligible input.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.3 4.1 4.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 7.2

• Genome-Genome Integration: Symbiosis, Genetic Assimilation, and Evolutionary Innovation

  The broad goal of this project is to clarify genetic changes that mediate the establishment and diversification of genome-genome interactions. Using insect-associated endosymbionts as model systems, we are examining the molecular and evolutionary forces that shape associations between bacteria and eukaryotic hosts.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 4.2 5.1 5.2

• Relationship Between Hydrogeology and Microbiology at Active Springs

  We are currently investigating a sulfur spring system in a zone of high deformation in the central coast range of California. This system presents opportunities to study multiple, sustained groundwater discharge sites with environmental gradients affecting extant microbial communities.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 2.1 4.2 5.2 7.1

• Laboratory Microbial Simulations (House)

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.4 4.1 5.1 5.2 7.2

• Molecular Survey of Microbial Diversity in Hypersaline Ecosystems

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1 3.2 3.4 4.1 4.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1

• Microbial Mat Communities

  Our primary research objective is to better understand the origins and adaptive radiation of an ancient and biogeochemically significant assemblage of microorganisms, the sulfate-reducing prokaryotes (SRP).

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 4.1 5.1 5.2 5.3

• Philosophical Issues in Astrobiology

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1 3.2 3.4 4.1 5.1 5.2

• Evolution of Atmospheric O2, Climate, and Biosphere (Ohmoto)

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 2.1 4.1 4.3 5.1 5.2 6.1 7.1

• Evolution of a Habitable Planet (Kump)

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.2 6.1

• Ecology of a Hawaiian Lava Cave Microbial Mat

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 4.1 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.2

• Seafloor Eruptions: Access to Deep Hydrothermal Biosphere

  This project is an on-going study of the microbial and geochemical changes associated with seafloor eruptions at mid-ocean ridges. The intrusion of a magma dike into the neovolcanic zone of a mid-ocean ridge is the “quantum” event in the accretion of the upper ocean crust. Such ridge axis diking/eruptive events are episodic perturbations that trigger a sequence of interrelated and rapidly evolving physical, chemical, and biological processes associated with the formation of ocean crust.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 4.1 5.1 5.2 6.1