Astrobiologists studying ecological changes in shallow lakes on the North Slope of Alaska have discovered diverse sources of methane in lake sediments. The study shows that methane can arise from sources deep in the Earth or from biological communities that inhabit sediments on the lake floor.

Importantly, the research also reveals that rising global temperatures may result in increasing production of this potential greenhouse gas by methane-generating microbes. The results of the five-year study are an important step toward understanding how different methane sources in close proximity could respond to ecosystem change in the Alaskan arctic.

The study, “Methane sources in arctic thermokarst lake sediments on the North Slope of Alaska,” was published in the journal. Geobiology.

This research was supported in part by the Astrobiology Science & Technology for Exploring Planets (ASTEP) element of the Astrobiology Program and the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI).