Collaborative Research: Determining Functional Correlations Between Geochemical Factors and Microbial Metabolisms in Ultrabasic Serpentinizing Ecosystems
The study of extreme environments, especially those that are similar to conditions thought to be prevalent on early Earth, provide insights not only into how life ekes out an existence in the most hostile places on our planet today, but how it might have done so long ago, perhaps at the dawn of life. This work will examine life in such an extreme environment. It is a serpentinization site where liquids emerge from the Earth at very high pH, very low redox potential, with almost no organics to eat, and virtually no oxygen or other things to respire: one of the most challenging environments on E