Origins 2011 – Abstracts

Detection of peptidic sequences in the ancient acidic sediments of Río Tinto, Spain

María Colín García^1,2,3, Basem Kanawati⁴, Mourad Harir⁴, Phillippe Schmitt-Kopplin⁴, Ricardo Amils^1,5, Victor Parro¹, Miriam García¹, David Fernández-Remolar¹

¹Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC/INTA), Spain; ²Instituto de Geología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; ³Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; ⁴Department of BioGeoChemistry and Analytics, Institute of Ecological Chemistry, Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany;; ⁵Departamento de Biología Molecular, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Madrid, Spain

Biomarkers are molecules produced by or associated to biological activities. All biomolecules might be molecular fossils but very few survive diagenetic transformations. Here we report the presence of short-chained peptides obtained from extracts of ferruginous sedimentary deposits produced under the acidic-oxidizing solutions of Río Tinto, Spain. These results go against the paradigmatic idea that considers very extreme environments unappropriated for the preservation of molecular information.

Experimental fossilisation of viruses from extremophilic Archaea

François Orange¹, Annie Chabin¹, Aurore Gorlas², Soizick Lucas-Staat³, Claire Geslin², Marc Le Romancier², David Prangishvili³, Patrick Forterre³, Frances Westall¹

¹Centre de Biophysique CNRS-OSUC, Orléans France; ²Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Plouzané, France; ³Molecular Biology of the Gene in Extremophiles Unit, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France

This study presents the results of the first experimental fossilisation of viruses from extremophilic Archaea. Three viruses from hyperthermophilic Archaea were successfully fossilised and preserved over several months. The results suggest that viral remains could be preserved in the rock record, although their identification may be challenging due to their small size.

Sampling Extreme Life in the Desert: Geochemical Habitats and Biodiversity

Bernard Foing^1,2,8, Carole Stoker³, Pascale Ehrenfreund^4,5, Zita Martins⁶, Susana Direito², Luisa Rodrigues², Wilfred Roeling², Gareth Davies², Cora Thiel^7,8, Damien Loizeau¹, David Blake³, Michelle Kotler⁴, Grazyna Orzechowska¹⁰, Richard Kidd¹⁰, Jon Clark¹¹, Vladimir Pletser¹, Anouk Borst^2,8, Stefan Peters², Lorenz Wendt¹², Christoph Gross¹², Mary Beth Wilhelm^3,13, EuroGeoMars Team^1,3,8, DOMMEX-EuroMoonMars Team^3,8,9

¹ESA/ESTEC postbus 299, 2200 AG Noordwijk, NL; ²Faculty of Earth & Life Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, NL; ³NASA Ames Research Centre, CA, US; ⁴Leiden Institute of Chemistry, NL; ⁵Space Policy Institute, George Washington University, US; ⁶Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London UK; ⁷Institute of Medical Physics and Biophysics, University of Muenster, Germany; ⁸ILEWG; ⁹Ecole de l’Air, Salon-de-Provence, F; ¹⁰Jet Propulsion Laboratory, CalTech, Pasadena, US; ¹¹Geoscience Australia, AU; ¹²FU Berlin, D; ¹³Cornell University, US

We have performed field campaigns in the Utah desert at sites analogues to Mars including fluvial sandstone and clays; carbonaceous pyritic units; paleochannels; concretions & endoliths. We find high mineral and biodiversity of soil samples, low abundances of PAHs and amino acids and the presence of biota of all three domains of life with significant heterogeneity. References in “Astrobiology field Research in Moon/Mars Analogue Environments”, (Foing, Stoker & Ehrenfreund, Editors), IJA, 10 articles.