Authors: Man-Yin Tsang, Fumio Inagaki

Below the seafloor are trillions of single-celled microbial life. Marine sediments bury these microorganisms deeper and deeper. Meanwhile, the microorganisms face increasing pressures and temperatures and reduced amounts of food and water. Although they are living in difficult conditions, these microorganisms stay alive and maintain their communities. To date, we know that these microbial communities can survive for millions of years, at 2.5 km below the seafloor, and at temperatures over 100°C. Scientists use multiple approaches to study these fascinating microorganisms.

The Integrative Programs Section within the Division of Ocean Sciences (OCE) in the Directorate of Geosciences (GEO) announces a nationwide search for a Program Director (Rotator) with experience and expertise in the general fields of marine geology, marine geophysics, paleoceanography, marine geochemistry, marine geobiology, or scientific ocean drilling. The Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) provides oversight of the award supporting operations of the JOIDES Resolution drillship facility, the primary U.S. contribution to the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP). The Program Director’s core duties and responsibilities will be assisting in administering the current ODP awards and in assisting the provision of leadership and coordination in IODP and other U.S. and international scientific ocean drilling efforts, as well as in coordinating and working with other programs in NSF and other Federal agencies and organizations.

The Rosenstiel School in Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami (UM) seeks to expand its vibrant intellectual community through inviting applications within a cluster hiring initiative to appoint up to five tenured or tenure-track faculty members, one per Department, who meet the following qualifications: Faculty who would bring visibility, renown, and additional impact to any of the five individual RSMAS Departments in Atmospheric Sciences, Ocean Sciences, Marine Geosciences, Marine Biology and Ecology, or Environmental Science and Policy; Faculty who would add to the long-standing goal of increasing diversity across our departments. Applications will be considered at the Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Professor ranks.

The Earth and Environmental Science Jobs List is now co-hosted by the Earth Science Women’s Network! This crowd-sourced list includes pages for Tenure Track/Permanent jobs, Non-Tenure Track Faculty, and Postdoc positions. Graduate student positions are co-moderated by Geoscience Education Mentoring Support (GEMS).

Water-rock reactions supporting the deep subsurface biosphere by producing electron donors and acceptors in the subsurface have been identified, from serpentinization (mineral hydration reactions), to radiogenic reactions. In the Stable Isotope Laboratory of Dr. Barbara Sherwood Lollar, this project focuses on the potential for a radiolytically driven H, S, and C deep cycle in the Earth’s subsurface, and the reaction mechanisms and rates sustaining deep subsurface microorganisms in the absence of interaction with the surface photosphere. The Earth-based focus on this work will have direct relevance for models of planetary habitability capable of sustaining subsurface chemolithotrophic life on planets or moons where photosynthesis may never have arisen. Field, laboratory and modelling opportunities are available to extend the existing program to explore the implications of our work on Earth analogs to the search for life on the rocky bodies and ocean worlds of our solar system.

Did you miss the last VMS on The Many Ways to Use Anvi’o, a Platform for Microbial ‘Omics? Check out the recording with invited speaker Iva Veseli (University of Chicago) as she introduces Anvi’o, a community-driven software platform enabling integrated analyses and interactive visualization of multi-’omic data, and discusses the various ways to learn and use anvi’o, and how these strategies fit different research needs and users with different levels of computational experience.

Did you miss the last VMS on Sampling Oceanic Crustal Fluids: Some Options? Check out the recording with invited speakers Rika Anderson (Carleton College), Julie Huber (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), Susan Lang (University of South Carolina), and Michael Rappé (University of Hawaii) as they discuss the many different types of samplers including those available for sampling hydrothermal fluids with submersibles, and the costs and benefits of the different approaches.

Hydrothermal vent fluids from the Gorda Ridge spreading center in the Pacific Ocean create a biological hub of activity in the deep sea. There in the dark ocean, a unique food web thrives not on photosynthesis but on chemical energy from the venting fluids. Among the creatures having a field day is a diverse assortment of microbial eukaryotes, or protists, that graze on chemosynthetic bacteria and archaea. This protistan grazing, a key mechanism for carbon transport and recycling in microbial food webs, exerts a higher predation pressure at hydrothermal vent sites than in the surrounding deep-sea environment, a U.S. National Science Foundation-funded paper reports. “Our findings provide a first estimate of protistan grazing pressure in hydrothermal vent food webs, highlighting the important role diverse protistan communities play in deep-sea carbon cycling,” according to the paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

There’s a mystery hiding deep beneath our feet. If you dig down past the tree roots and house foundations, past the water table and the fossilized bones, through layers of rock and ore, you’ll eventually reach a boundary. Here, the Earth’s crust — the rock we live our lives on — transitions into the denser rock of the Earth’s mantle. This boundary is the Mohorovičić discontinuity, or “Moho” for short. And no one knows for sure what this boundary looks like, or what lies there. Hear more in the Unexplainable podcast episode “Journey Toward the Center of the Earth” with Byrd Pinkerton.

In this BBC Earth Podcast, we’re exploring the parts of our world that require us to look a little deeper. From the depths of our oceans to the canopies that grace our skylines, we’ll be venturing into unfamiliar pockets of nature with the people who have carved a life out of choosing to study the things that many of us can’t see. We also travel to the bottom of the ocean, and discover how even in the most extreme environments fragments of life persist. What can this alien environment teach us about life’s limits and extraordinary capabilities? C-DEBIer James Bradley talks about the deep biosphere and the findings of his recent Science Advances paper.

The evidence mounts that bacteria can be effectively immortal. Featuring the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program’s Expedition 329 to the South Pacific Gyre. By Jennifer Frazer on March 4, 2021.

The U.S. Science Support Program sponsors Pre-Drilling Activities to provide funds in quick response to an opportunity to acquire data or information that will enhance a drilling expedition. Priority is given to projects that support expeditions already on the ship’s schedule. The definition of this activity is deliberately flexible to allow consideration of exceptional or unusual requests for drill site data enhancement.

The goal of NASA’s Exobiology program (formerly Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology) is to understand the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the Universe. Research is centered on the origin and early evolution of life, the potential of life to adapt to different environments, and the implications for life elsewhere. This research is conducted in the context of NASA’s ongoing exploration of our stellar neighborhood and the identification of biosignatures for in situ and remote sensing applications.

The Directorate for Geosciences (GEO) supports the Pathways into the Geosciences – Earth, Ocean, Polar and Atmospheric Sciences (GEOPAths) funding opportunity. GEOPAths invites proposals that specifically address the current needs and opportunities related to education, learning, training and professional development within the geosciences community through the formation of STEM Learning Ecosystems that engage students in the study of the Earth, its oceans, polar regions and atmosphere. The primary goal of the GEOPAths funding opportunity is to increase the number of students pursuing undergraduate and/or postgraduate degrees through the design and testing of novel approaches that engage students in authentic, career-relevant experiences in geoscience. In order to broaden participation in the geosciences, engaging students from historically excluded groups or from non-geoscience degree programs is a priority.

The primary goal of the UNOLS Cruise Opportunity Program is to provide graduate students currently completing (or who have recently completed) a degree in a field of oceanographic research with the opportunity to participate in a research cruise. The participant will be a member of the scientific party and be involved in data collection and all other activities at sea. It is envisioned that the individual will be familiar with the science to be conducted at sea, and thus, form new collaborations and potentially develop new research directions. To be eligible to participate in this program, the individual must be either currently be studying at a U.S.-based institution or a recent graduate, and must have either a U.S. Passport or a U.S. Work Visa. Please note that you are responsible for paying for your travel to/from the ship (unless otherwise noted), and at this time the UNOLS Office is unable to provide travel funds; however your advisor or institution may have some ideas.

Abstract

Putative alkaline hydrothermal systems on Noachian Mars were potentially habitable environments for microorganisms. However, the types of reactions that could have fueled microbial life in such systems and the amount of energy available from them have not been quantitatively constrained. In this study, we use thermodynamic modeling to calculate which catabolic reactions could have supported ancient life in a saponite-precipitating hydrothermal vent system in the Eridania basin on Mars. To further evaluate what this could mean for microbial life, we evaluated the energy potential of an analog site in Iceland, the Strytan Hydrothermal Field. Results show that, of the 84 relevant redox reactions that were considered, the highest energy-yielding reactions in the Eridania hydrothermal system were dominated by methane formation. By contrast, Gibbs energy calculations carried out for Strytan indicate that the most energetically favorable reactions are CO₂ and O₂ reduction coupled to H₂ oxidation. In particular, our calculations indicate that an ancient hydrothermal system within the Eridania basin could have been a habitable environment for methanogens using NH₄⁺ as an electron acceptor. Differences in Gibbs energies between the two systems were largely determined by oxygen—its presence on Earth and absence on Mars. However, Strytan can serve as a useful analog for Eridania when studying methane-producing reactions that do not involve O₂.

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Single-celled microbial eukaryotes inhabit deep-sea hydrothermal vent environments and play critical ecological roles in the vent-associated microbial food web. 18S rRNA amplicon sequencing of diffuse venting fluids from four geographically- and geochemically-distinct hydrothermal vent fields was applied to investigate community diversity patterns among protistan assemblages. The four vent fields include Axial Seamount at the Juan de Fuca Ridge, Sea Cliff and Apollo at the Gorda Ridge, all in the NE Pacific Ocean, and Piccard and Von Damm at the Mid-Cayman Rise in the Caribbean Sea. We describe species diversity patterns with respect to hydrothermal vent field and sample type, identify putative vent endemic microbial eukaryotes, and test how vent fluid geochemistry may influence microbial community diversity. At a semi-global scale, microbial eukaryotic communities at deep-sea vents were composed of similar proportions of dinoflagellates, ciliates, Rhizaria, and stramenopiles. Individual vent fields supported distinct and highly diverse assemblages of protists that included potentially endemic or novel vent-associated strains. These findings represent a census of deep-sea hydrothermal vent protistan communities. Protistan diversity, which is shaped by the hydrothermal vent environment at a local scale, ultimately influences the vent-associated microbial food web and the broader deep-sea carbon cycle.

Meet the 2020 summer line up for the Summer OnLine Interactive/Discussion Global Environmental Microbiology (SOLID-GEM) course. We are proud to have been a step in their scientific pathway. Learn more about the GEM course.

Learn more about the GEM course

Meet the 2019 summer line up for the Global Environmental Microbiology course. We are proud to have been a step in their scientific pathway. Learn more about the GEM course.

Learn more about the GEM course

Meet the 2018 summer line up for the Global Environmental Microbiology course. We are proud to have been a step in their scientific pathway. Learn more about the GEM course.

Learn more about the GEM course

Meet the 2018 summer line up for the Community College Cultivation Cohort (C4) REU. We are proud to have been a step in their scientific pathway. Learn more about the C4 REU.

Learn more about the C4 REU