Life in Extreme Environments and Roots of Life
Life is thought to have arisen around 3.8 billion years ago beginning with relatively simple one-celled micro-organisms. Having existed about two billion years longer than multi-celled (eukaryotic) organisms, these prokaryotic micro-organisms are extraordinarily diverse and live in an extremely broad range of habitats.
To learn more about the research activity in this theme contact: Ida Helene Steen.
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About the roots of life
In the late 1970s a new phyla of micro-organism was discovered, the Archaea. Since their discovery, researchers have wondered if Archaea are the descendents or even living fossils of the earliest life forms (as the name suggests).
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Future directions (from 2011)
Hydrothermal and subsurface ecosystems are driven by the chemical energy of fluids that have become reduced through water-rock reactions. Redox-gradients develop where such reduced geo-fluids mix with other fluids that are in a less reduced state, or with oxic seawater. These redox-gradients are capable of sustaining microbial life.
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Sampling in the Siberian tundra
Summer 2011 Antje Gittel took part in a sampling campaign on the Taymyr Peninsula in Northern Russia.
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Nordic field course in Geobiology
Iceland, with its unique situation on a mid-ocean ridge, is an ideal natural laboratory for the study of the interface between the geosphere and the biosphere.
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Research summary 2007-2010
Subsurface and hydrothermal vent ecosystems are habitats that may provide knowledge about the roots of life on Earth as well as information about life on other planets.
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In 2009
Many consider that the deep sea hydrothermal vent systems existing today are the closest modern analogs to conditions under which life first began on Earth around 3.8 billion years ago. What lived then? What did it live on? How did it evolve into the organisms we know today?