The Leverhulme Trust has awarded the OU funding to explore the volcanic environments which have persisted on the Earth since its formation 4.5 billion years ago. The microbes that survive in these locations can yield insights into how life has taken advantage of these environments throughout the history of this planet.
OU researchers from the Centre for Earth Planetary Space and Astronomical Research (CEPSAR) will study the extremophile bacteria that live in volcanic environments. Following a volcanic eruption, life can begin to take hold again and reclaim the land quite quickly. There have been classic studies of Krakatoa in Indonesia, showing how over decades, animals and plants recolonized the island following its devastating explosion in 1883. In contrast, the colonization dynamics of these extreme environments by the microbes, single-celled organisms, that take advantage of the habitats provided by new lava flows and related sites around active volcanoes has not been mapped in any detail.
Charles Cockell is the OU’s professor and chair of microbiology who for the last few years has been living a dream to connect his two main scientific interests – biology and space exploration.
Specifically his research centres on the interaction between microbes and minerals and how the former react in extreme environments.Prof Cockell and researchers in the OU Geomicrobiology Research Group will use state-of-the-art molecular geomicrobiology methods to study microbe-mineral interactions at active volcano sites in Iceland in order to enhance our understanding of how these microbes persist in these extreme environments.
