About this Research Topic
Throughout the solar system, rocks interacting with liquid water are widespread but spatiotemporally limited, except for Planet Earth. The involvement of rock-forming minerals with high iron contents in silicate frameworks is presumably essential to support rock-hosted microbial life in aqueous systems that synthesize abiotic organics and molecular hydrogen. However, recent advances in sampling and analyzing rock-microbial assemblages are broadening our understanding of the rocky biosphere where microbial inhabitation appears to be hostile.
It is now our task to gather pieces of information from scientific and/or technological innovations such as omics and single-cell level characterizations, which targeted rocky habitats minimally depending on photosynthesis. By synthesizing the pieces of rock-hosted life, it is attempted to delineate the entire history of microbial life on Earth and the life’s potential on other planetary bodies.
This Research Topic focuses on studies (including e.g. original research, perspectives, minireviews, commentaries and opinion papers) that investigate and discuss:
1) The nature and extent of the microbiome in the rocky biosphere.
2) The interactions of microbes with minerals, metals and radionuclides.
3) The influence of external factors toward the habitability.
4) The preservation of microbial signatures in rocky habitats (e.g. as minerals, organics, isotopes and so on)
5) The development of procedures for sampling and/or analyzing of the rocky biosphere.
It is now our task to gather pieces of information from scientific and/or technological innovations such as omics and single-cell level characterizations, which targeted rocky habitats minimally depending on photosynthesis. By synthesizing the pieces of rock-hosted life, it is attempted to delineate the entire history of microbial life on Earth and the life’s potential on other planetary bodies.
This Research Topic focuses on studies (including e.g. original research, perspectives, minireviews, commentaries and opinion papers) that investigate and discuss:
1) The nature and extent of the microbiome in the rocky biosphere.
2) The interactions of microbes with minerals, metals and radionuclides.
3) The influence of external factors toward the habitability.
4) The preservation of microbial signatures in rocky habitats (e.g. as minerals, organics, isotopes and so on)
5) The development of procedures for sampling and/or analyzing of the rocky biosphere.
Keywords: Subsurface microbiology, deep sea rocky habitats, extremophile habitability, ancient life's signatures, omics-based evo-phylogeny, eco-physiology
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