The Lupin Mine, Nunavut (Canada): life in Earth's deep subsurface
While the lives of "chemolithoautotrophs" (as Lisa Pratt says, the fancy word just means "rock eaters") are out of sight and out of mind for most of us, many researchers think the total amount of living organisms who inhabit the interior of our planet-never seeing the Sun-may rival in weight all the creatures we see around us on the surface! In this sequence, Peter Suchecki, a cameraman working for Indiana University, accompanies Lisa and her team (including colleagues from Finland and Canada) on a research expedition down more than one kilometer into a Canadian gold mine that's about to be closed forever. We see how the process of scientific research in such extreme conditions nevertheless exactly mirrors what's taught in science labs up here on the surface.
Background on Lisa Pratt, lead scientist for the expedition seen in LOOKING FOR LIFE
("Stay tuned" for an interactive multimedia education resource from Indiana University, featuring work at Lupin and the exciting biological implications of discoveries made by Pratt and her colleagues. As soon as the DVD is available, we will post information here.)
Feature article on Dr. Pratt's work
Great Terraforming Debate: Looking for Martian Life
General interest articles on "Deep Dwellers" focusing on Lisa Pratt's colleague, Tullis Onstott, and his work in South Africa: "Life down under"
http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arc97/3_29_97/bob1.htm
http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/news_stories/news_detail.cfm?ID=46
Not another reference to Australia, but Chris Chyba's and Kevin Hands' discussion of how the finding of sub-surface life on Earth has implications for the search for life elsewhere in the solar system: