View looking down into Little Hot Springs Valley...where collaborator (and husband) Mark Wilson exclaimed......."THIS IS THIS SCARIEST PLACE I'VE EVER BEEN!!!". We found ground temperatures exceeding 90 degrees C in some areas surrounding the cool river. As you insert a temperature probe a few inches into the river sediments, temps rapidly rise from 20 to 60 degrees C.
Former student Aubree Hoover and I sampling at Bumpass Hell (BH-5) (pH 1.2, 78.7 degrees C). BH-5 is connected (by overflow) to green-colored BH-6 ( pH 1.1, 29 degrees C). Several features in the Bumpass Hell region have been investigated that range from 72 to 95 degrees C and pH from 1-2. Boiling temperature at this altitude is ~ 93 degrees C.
Immense Boiling Springs Lake (~55 degrees C, pH 1.6) - where rRNA sequences were retrievedthat corresponded to thermoacidophilic Archaea, and unexpected mesophilic, acid intolerant genera. Other 16S rRNA sequences were retrieved from this (and other more extreme environments) that corresponded to no known genera. Junior undergraduate Jessica Clarke is current working on isolation of organisms from this environment.
A cool hot-pink microbial mat (pH 5.1, 61 degrees C), that former undergraduate Adam Prince did EM analysis on.
View of me preparing to sample from Upper Sulfur Works mudpot (USW5) (pH 2.2, 86.5 degrees), where we have just started 16S rRNA sequence analyses.
ahhhh...sulfur, the stuff of life. These sulfur flowers were formed by the precipitation of elemental sulfur when sulfide-enriched gases emerged from the ground surface. Sulfur, in all its various oxidation states, drives many aerobic and anaerobic metabolic processes in high temperature, low pH ecosystems. S-mediated primary production (chemosynthesis vs. photosynthesis) is also rampant in these environments!
