Andes Glaciers Offer Insights into Global Warming & Early Life on Mars
source: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/09/retreating-ande.html#more
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- celestialceiling
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A study of microbes beneath the retreating Puca Glacier at 16,400 feet in the Peruvian Andes is the first to show how life becomes established with implications for how life might have once flourished on Mars.
Global climate change has accelerated the pace of glacial retreat in high latitude and high-elevation environments, exposing lands that have been devoid of vegetation for centuries or millennia, said
Steve Schmidt of the University of Colorado at Boulder, department of ecology and evolutionary biology. He likened the high Andes to the harsh Dry Valleys of Antarctica, under study by researchers from NASA's Astrobiology Institute because of hostile conditions believed to be similar to those on portions of Mars.
"The most startling finding was how much the diversity increased in just four years in what was seemingly barren soil," said Schmidt. Another unexpected finding on the Puca Glacier was how microbes stabilized the soil and prevented erosion on the slope by using their filament-like structure to weave soil particles together in a matrix, Schmidt said. The CU-Boulder researchers also found the microbes excrete a glue-like sugar compound to further bond soil particles.
Read the full article
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/09/retreating-ande.html#more
Global climate change has accelerated the pace of glacial retreat in high latitude and high-elevation environments, exposing lands that have been devoid of vegetation for centuries or millennia, said
Steve Schmidt of the University of Colorado at Boulder, department of ecology and evolutionary biology. He likened the high Andes to the harsh Dry Valleys of Antarctica, under study by researchers from NASA's Astrobiology Institute because of hostile conditions believed to be similar to those on portions of Mars.
"The most startling finding was how much the diversity increased in just four years in what was seemingly barren soil," said Schmidt. Another unexpected finding on the Puca Glacier was how microbes stabilized the soil and prevented erosion on the slope by using their filament-like structure to weave soil particles together in a matrix, Schmidt said. The CU-Boulder researchers also found the microbes excrete a glue-like sugar compound to further bond soil particles.
Read the full article
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/09/retreating-ande.html#more
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- groups:
- Green, Earth and Science
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- tags:
- Green, Earth and Science, Environment, Global Warming, 3 more
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yaget1chance
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We know so little. It is extremely interresting how, even though we give ourselves so much credit for changing the climate that good old mother nature goes about her way doing what she's always done. Leaving our little changes in her wake. I wonder how long the earth will take to recover after we are all gone?
- 3 years ago
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yaget1chance
