The last two decades have seen geomicrobiology evolve into a broad field encompassing a
wide range of environmentally significant processes such as proton and metal adsorption …

Conspectus Nature has developed a fascinating strategy of cryptobiosis (“secret life”) for
counteracting the stressful, and often lethal, environmental conditions that fluctuate …

The search for traces of life is one of the principal objectives of Mars exploration. Central to
this objective is the concept of habitability, the set of conditions that allows the appearance …

The Martian surface is cold, dry, exposed to biologically harmful radiation and apparently
barren today. Nevertheless, there is clear geological evidence for warmer, wetter intervals in …

The recognition of past habitable environments on Mars has increased the urgency to
understand biosignature preservation in and characterize analogues of these environments …

Subsurface habitats on Earth host an extensive extant biosphere and likely provided one of
Earth's earliest microbial habitats. Although the site of life's emergence continues to be …

Silica has the highest demonstrated potential of any phase to preserve microfossils on Earth
and therefore may host potential biosignatures on Mars. We detected hydrated silica in …

Abstract The European AstRoMap project (supported by the European Commission Seventh
Framework Programme) surveyed the state of the art of astrobiology in Europe and beyond …

Siliceous hot-spring deposits, or sinters, typically form in active, terrestrial (on land), volcanic
terrains where magmatically heated waters circulating through the shallow crust emerge at …

Fossil biominerals and fossils of microorganisms in ancient rocks contain important
biogeochemical signals. Decoding this record may reveal crucial information about the …