DGSE Lecture—Monday October 17

Topic: Mining for Microbes: Diversity of life in the deep subsurface
Speaker: Dr. Brandi Reese, Texas A&M
When: Monday October 17th at 4 PM
Where: DMS 105

https://www.unr.edu/around-campus/davidson-math-and-science-center

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Abstract: The deep subsurface environment has been shown to host a diverse prokaryotic population that may be home to one of the largest biomes on Earth. This environment has only recently been appreciated as a diverse metabolically active ecosystem, profoundly affecting global elemental cycles. Due to extreme difficulty inherent in sampling this environment, relatively few locations have been studied in depth and over time. Therefore, the diversity, abundance, energy metabolisms and active fraction of subsurface organisms have traditionally been poorly constrained. My research uses high throughput sequencing to comprehensively survey archaeal and bacterial communities in deeply buried continental and marine environments. Unlike other environments, the deep subsurface provides a unique opportunity to study biogeography across four dimensions. These samples are not only isolated by linear space on a global scale, but they are also temporally isolated by, in some cases, tens of millions of years.

For questions, please contact:
Scott McCoy, Assistant Professor, University of Nevada, Department of Geological Sciences and Engineering
Office phone: 775-682-7205