All vacation plans were replaced with hot springs, lectures and field studies, when 15 biology, chemistry and geology students from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland headed for Reykavik for 12 days.
In dense fogs of sulfur steams and surrounded by bubbling mud pools, 21 students searched for microbial life, as the joint Nordic field course in geobiology was held in Iceland from 1st to 12th of August. Through laboratory studies of bacterial communities in hot springs, the students learned about the experimental methods that can help to uncover the massive influence from the microorganisms on Earth and may provide insight into how life could arise in the young Earth’s chemical primordial soup.
Iceland is located on the Mid-Atlantic ridge between the American and the Eurasian continental plate, and the steady movement of the plates away from each other makes the whole country into a geothermal active area with many extreme environments. In the country’s many aquatic niches, called hot springs, are bacterial colonies that live under extreme life conditions, where temperatures in some springs is above 100°C. In these extreme environments, unique bacterial communities can be found where almost no life can live.
Wearing knee-high rubber boots as protection against the scalding hot springs, microbial mats were collected in the area Ölkelduháls west of Reykjavik. Here, the geothermal activity is associated with an active volcanic underground, so alkaline sulfur gases steamed from the springs. The geology around the hot springs were examined for precipitation of minerals such as sulfur, silicate and iron, which colours the ground with characteristic yellow, white and red, and water samples were collected for further chemical analysis to determine ion composition and origin.
The microbial mats were identified under light microscope and with an electron microscope, which produces detailed 3D-images of even tiny organisms, and oxygen consumption and production were measured down through the finger-thick mats. In addition, the students worked with purifying and copying of DNA from the collected organisms, as well as isolation and characterization of proteins. At a theoretical level, genetic trees of kinship between bacterial groups where produced based on DNA sequences.
Many answers are waiting in the intersection between geology and microbiology, and through the joint Nordic geobiology course, the students were introduced to the exciting work that lies in identifying the bacterial influence on the globe - throughout the history and on the Earth we have today.
The course is a partnership between the Institute of Biology at University of Southern Denmark, University of Bergen, Stockholm University, University of Helsinki and University of Iceland and is supported by NordPlus under Nordic Council of Ministers.
Written by biology student Lærke Arentoft Johansen
24.08.2011
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