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Life in solid ice?
Life seems to expand to fill all niches except those forbidden by some physical principle. To address this question requires drawing upon chemistry, physics, earth sciences, microbiology, and glaciology. About one-millionth of the volume of Antarctic glacial ice at very low temperature is laced with a network of acidic liquid veins in which highly specialized bacterial life might survive. Below 3 to 4 km of ice are subglacial lakes that have been isolated for millions of years. Bacteria might enter the ice from the atmosphere or a subglacial lake of crack in bedrock. While the main thrust of scientists is to recover pristine samples of subglacial lake, sediment, or Antarctic bedrock for biological studies, Prof. P. Buford Price, Dept. of Physics, UC Berkeley, is searching for living bacteria in ice itself. A positive result would have several exciting implications.
- "Life seems to expand to fill all niches except those forbidden by some physical principle. To address this question requires drawing upon chemistry, physics, earth sciences, microbiology, and glaciology. About one-millionth of the volume of Antarctic glacial ice at very low temperature is laced with a network of acidic liquid veins in which highly specialized bacterial life might survive. Below 3 to 4 km of ice are subglacial lakes that have been isolated for millions of years. Bacteria might enter the ice from the atmosphere or a subglacial lake of crack in bedrock. While the main thrust of scientists is to recover pristine samples of subglacial lake, sediment, or Antarctic bedrock for biological studies, Prof. P. Buford Price, Dept. of Physics, UC Berkeley, is searching for living bacteria in ice itself. A positive result would have several exciting implications."@en
- "Conference papers and proceedings"@en