Evolution under extraterrestrial conditions
Experimenting with early life on Mars
PI: Emeline Bolmont, Nina Zeyen, Luca Caricchi
Collaborators: Bastiaan Ibelings, Dan McGinnis (UniGE), Wenyu Gu, Jie Xue (EPFL), Brice-Olivier Demory (University of Bern), Mathilda Fatton (University of Bern and Neuchâtel), Antoine Pommerol (University of Bern), Maria Schönbächler (ETH Zurich)
Funding: PlanetS
Dates: 01.01.2024 – 31.12.2025
Description:
Life must have emerged very early on primitive Earth. Indeed, the first signs of biogenic microfossils date as far back as 3.4 Gyr in the Archean. On primitive Earth, most of the surface was submerged but it is possible that subaerial regions, most likely felsic, were present already early in the Earth's history when life was not yet present or extremely scarce. Consequently, chemoautotrophs (bacteria that derive energy from the oxidation of inorganic compounds) could have been one of the earliest possible types of bacteria on Earth. Around the same time on Mars, liquid water was flowing on the surface creating networks of rivers, lakes and seas. Some studies show that mixtures of gasses such as CO2+H2 could lead to surface conditions allowing for liquid water during that period despite the faint young Sun. At that time on Mars, there was already a diversity of rocks and minerals, including extensive outcrops of volcanic basalts in aqueous and subaerial conditions. Additionally, there were also fluvio-lacustrine sedimentary rocks associated with river systems and containing for instance plagioclases, pyroxenes, quartz and significant amounts of clay minerals (phyllosilicates). In that context, we ask the question: what could life on Early Mars have been like, and if life survived until now on Mars where would it be and how would it appear using current Martian rover technologies? This proposal will investigate the survivability, growth and evolution of Methanococcus maripaludis in different environments, which could be representative of early Mars.
This project builds on a previous project led by Dr. Asena Kuzucan who looked at the survivability of E. coli in different atmospheres, which could be representatives of exoplanets atmospheres (Kuzucan et al. 2025, Life).
Positions:
- One Postdoctoral researcher (Dr. Asena Kuzucan): Experiments on survival and evolution of bacteria under early Mars environment.