Recently in the Geobiology Category

Earth's volatile elements (H, C, and N) are essential to maintaining habitable conditions for metazoans and simpler life forms.

The chemical components crucial to the start of life on Earth may have primed and protected each other in never-before-realized ways, according to new research led by University of Washington scientists.

The Antarctic continental ice cap came into existence during the Oligocene epoch, some 33.6 million years ago, according to data from an international expedition led by the Andalusian Institute of Earth Sciences (IACT)--a Spanish National Research Council-University of Granada joint centre. These findings, based on information contained in ice sediments from different depths, have recently been published in the journal Science.

The widespread disappearance of stromatolites, the earliest visible manifestation of life on Earth, may have been driven by single-celled organisms called foraminifera.

Please join us for the NAI Early Earth Focus Group Workshop Without Walls on "The Hadean Earth-Moon System". The workshop is aimed at providing the most up-to-date science on the first billion years' history of the Earth-Moon system, from solar system formation at 4.567 Ga to the widespread preservation of crustal rocks at 3.5 Ga to evidence for life preserved within those rocks.

Tiny 1,900 million-year-old fossils from rocks around Lake Superior, Canada, give the first ever snapshot of organisms eating each other and suggest what the ancient Earth would have smelled like. The fossils, preserved in Gunflint chert, capture ancient microbes in the act of feasting on a cyanobacterium-like fossil called Gunflintia - with the perforated sheaths of Gunflintia being the discarded leftovers of this early meal.

An international team of researchers, including Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, geochemist James Day, has found new evidence that material contained in oceanic lava flows originated in Earth's ancient Archean crust. These findings support the theory that much of the Earth's original crust has been recycled by the process of subduction, helping to explain how the Earth has formed and changed over time.

Application Deadline: December 29, 2012

The Gordon Research Seminar happening January 26-27, 2013 in Ventura, CA, on Geobiology is a unique forum for graduate students, post-docs, and other scientists with comparable levels of experience and education to present and exchange new data and cutting edge ideas.

The focus of this meeting is to explore the diverse and dynamic field of geobiology. The discussions and presentations will address these main themes:

* microbial structures in ancient and modern settings
* taphonomy and micropaleontology
* biomineralization and the co-evolution of minerals and microbes
* life detection for applications to early life on Earth and other planets
* integrating geobiobiology into interdisciplinary research and academic programs

For more information visit: http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?year=2013&program=grs_geo

This eleven-day scientific discovery tour that journeys from the Western Australian coastal town of Denham through the Pilbara will be a trip back in time. It is designed for scientists interested in the earliest life on Earth, and early environments. Highlights range from the modern stromatolites of Shark Bay, through the banded iron formations of the Hamersley Ranges to the earliest convincing evidence of life on Earth in the 3.5 billion-year-old rocks of the Pilbara Craton. Your guide, Professor Malcolm Walter, will take you through some of Australia's most remote and remarkable countryside. Accommodation will be in a sheep station (ranch), country hotels and camping under the stars (made easy by professional camp managers, Outdoor Spirit).

To download the Tour PDF and booking form visit: http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/events/astrobiology-grand-tour-western-australia/ [Source: NAI]

Date: 1 - 13 July, 2012
Location: Utrecht and Texel, Netherlands
Application Deadline: 25 May, 2012

The second Darwin Summer School on Biogeosciences will give PhD and advanced MSc students an update on the state-of-the-art research within the field of Biogeosciences. The focus will be ocean acidification, the carbon cycle, microbial ecology, biomarkers, terrestrial carbon cycling and climate reconstructions, in the past, present and future. This Summer School is all about interdisciplinary research. Students are expected to work on the interface of biology, earth sciences, chemistry and physics. More information and application: www.darwincenter.nl/dss