Water-Rock-Microbe Interactions and the Deep Biosphere
Fluids that circulate through the earth’s crust and mix with the ocean waters above are responsible for the exchange of elements between the crust and sea water. The processes involved are as yet poorly understood, but are critically important for complete models of marine chemistry and global element cycling.
The Deep Biosphere is a relatively unexplored frontier and studies of biodiversity here offer unique opportunities to examine the ecological and evolutionary processes that drive microbial diversity, community organisation and microbial interactions.
To learn more about the research activity in this theme contact: Ingunn Thorseth.
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About
While water-rock processes were originally believed to be strictly physical and chemical in nature, researchers are now coming to understand that water-rock interactions are strongly influenced by microbial activity and metabolic processes.
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Future directions (from 2011)
Alteration of oceanic crust due to reactions between rocks and circulating fluids is a major process controlling chemical exchange between the lithosphere and the ocean.
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The Once Departed Dead Sea
A CGB researcher, David Nicolas Waldmann, was part of an ICDP team that drilled sediment cores near the Dead Sea last December.
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Learning more about geobiology through sulphur isotopes
While many researchers are coming to CGB to gain access to both the Centre’s laboratory resources and researchers, CGB researchers are also travelling abroad to access technical resources not available at the University of Bergen.
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At sea for two months
Steffen Jorgensen, a PhD at CGB, will be literally at sea for two months this autumn aboard an international research cruise.
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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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Unraveling the Dead Sea deep biosphere secrets
The International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) has recently started a drilling campaign in the Dead Sea looking for evidence of life in an extreme hypersaline environment.
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Research summary 2007-2010
Our results thus far provide important background knowledge for further investigations of the deep endolithic biosphere in the basaltic ocean crust.
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In 2009
It was earlier believed that life on Earth was exclusively linked to photosynthesis and the production of organic matter and oxygen or oxygen-derived compounds.