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Títol:
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New approaches to the study of Antarctic lithobiontic microrganisms and their inorganic traces, and their application in the detection of life in Martian rocks
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Autor/a:
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Ascaso, C.; Wierzchos, Jacek
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Notes:
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Microbial life in the harsh conditions of Antarctica’s
cold desert may be considered an analogue of
potential life on early Mars. In order to explore the
development and survival of this epilithic and endolithic
form of microbial life, our most sophisticated, state-ofthe-
art visualization technologies have to be used to
their full potential. The study of any ecosystem requires
a knowledge of its components and the processes that
take place within it. If we are to understand the structure
and function of each component of the microecosystems
that inhabit lithic substrates, we need to be able to
quantify and identify the microorganisms present in
each lithobiontic ecological niche and to accurately
characterize the mineralogical features of these hidden
microhabitats. Once we have established the techniques
that will allow us to observe and identify these microorganisms
and mineral substrates in situ, and have
confirmed the presence of water, the following questions
can be addressed: How are the microorganisms organized
in the fissures or cavities? Which microorganisms
are present and how many are there? Additional questions
that logically follow include: What are the existing
water relationships in the microhabitat and what effects
do the microorganisms have on the mineral composition?
Mechanical and chemical changes in minerals and
mineralization of microbial cells can give rise to physical
and/or chemical traces (biomarkers) and to microbial
fossil formation. In this report, we describe the detection
of chains of magnetite within the Martian meteorite
ALH84001, as an example of the potential use of SEM-SEMBSE
in the search for plausible traces of life on early
Mars.
This study was funded by grant number ANT99-0680-C02-02 of the Plan Nacional I+D and BOS2000–1121 from the PGC. |
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Matèries:
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-ALH84001
-Antarctica
-Biomarkers |
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Drets:
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cc-by-nc-sa (c) Spanish Society for Microbiology, 2002
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/es/
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Tipus de document:
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article
publishedVersion |
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Publicat per:
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Springer Verlag
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Compartir:
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