Personnel
Brandy Toner, Professor, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Cara Santelli, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Chris Schuler, Ph.D. Student, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Scott Alexander, Senior Scientist, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Project Description
Banded together: modern water-microbe-mineral feedbacks in the deep Archean lithosphere -- Interactions between microbial life, humans, and our shared environment influence essentially every aspect of daily modern life, from the treatment of medical conditions to agricultural innovations. These interactions show how successful microbial life can be under a wide variety of conditions, on short time scales, and at the Earth's surface. However, scientists also have evidence that microbial life is important over long time scales and deep underground.
In this project we will investigate the strategies that microbial life uses to survive while living deep underground in rock fractures. In particular, will microbial processes create waste products that clog the fractures they need or create new fracture space, new neighborhoods, for microbial life. From our scientific observations, we will create models that will help us understand how microbial life works underground. Our results could be useful in understanding how microbial life will affect energy extraction processes, such as hydrologic fracturing ('fracking'), and underground waste disposal for some of our worst waste streams, such as nuclear materials.
Through this research project, we seek to discover the mechanisms by which microorganisms interact with physical and geochemical components of the deep subsurface. We are specifically interested in understanding the potential feedbacks that microbial metabolism has on the habitability of fractured-rock aquifer systems. Our overall approach is to conduct a hypothesis-driven study with integrated field-, laboratory-, and modeling components. Our project leverages the experience of a collaborative scientific team that draws broadly on Earth Science disciplines: specifically, geology, hydrogeology, geochemistry, and microbiology. With a field study centered on legacy boreholes and archived cores, we will investigate Neoarchean fractured-rock aquifers of the Canadian Shield.
Through this work, we will define:
(1) subsurface hydrogeological and geochemical factors that support or inhibit microbial growth;
(2) microbial adaptation to limiting factors through community interactions and metabolic innovation; and
(3) the positive or negative feedbacks of microbial activity on the geogenic milieu and habitability. Field and laboratory data streams will be integrated, and hypotheses tested, through the development and use of a fracture-scale reactive-transport model.