Pomona Osmers: Validating Biosignatures

<p dir="ltr">How do we search for extraterrestrial life? Hot springs on Earth serve as analogue systems to potential ancient habitable environments on Mars. Within these systems specific biomarkers known as biosignatures are investigated as the traces left behind by life in the rock record. Biosignatures are made by life, detectable, and well preserved. Gallium is a proposed biosignature because it is associated with hot spring microbial filaments, detectable through localised enrichment, and stable over geologic time. This project aims to uncover how the hot spring microbes are interacting with gallium and in doing so assess gallium’s utility as a biosignature for astrobiology. This research utilises a combination of microbial growth experiments, chemical analyses, and both classical and x-ray microscopy techniques. All together this will allow us to discern where and how the microbes are interacting with gallium, and thus if gallium is indeed a viable biosignature. </p>