Lava tubes as microbial habitats and planetary analogues

About the project

Lava tube caves are host to a fascinating microbiota that grows in mats or crusts sometimes visible to the naked eye. The biogeochemistry of these microbes, including their adaptational response to these oligotrophic environments, potential roles in speleothem formation and biogeochemical cycling of basalt components. Furthermore, Icelandic lava tubes make for attractive planetary analogues for astrobilogical studies, as they share many features with comparable cave systems in other rocky planets where life may have subsisted in the past.

Members

• Oddur Þór Vilhelmsson, Professor

Collaborators

• Members of the PELE consortium and the European Astrobiology Institute

Publications

• Kopacz, N., Csuka, J., Baqué, M., Iakubivskyi, I., Guðlaugardóttir, H., Klarenberg, I. J., Ahmed, M., Zetterlind, A., Singh, A., ten Kate, I. L., Hellebrand, E., Stockwell, B. R., Stefánsson, Á. B., Vilhelmsson, O., Neubeck, A., Schnürer, A., Geppert, W. (2022) A Study in Blue: Secondary Copper-rich Minerals and Their Associated Bacterial Diversity in Icelandic Lava Tubes. Earth and Space Science. doi: 10.1029/2022EA002234
• Guðný Vala Þorsteinsdótir and Oddur Vilhelmsson. 2013. in Icelandic: Skyggnst í örverulífríki Undirheima. [Bacterial life in the Netherworld – the culturable microbiota of Vatnshellir cave] Náttúrufræðingurinn 83, 127-142.