Microbial Communities in Sediments From Four Mildly Acidic Ephemeral Salt Lakes in the Yilgarn Craton (Australia) - Terrestrial Analogs to Ancient Mars.

ABSTRACT: The Yilgarn Craton in Australia has a large number of naturally occurring shallow ephemeral lakes underlain by a dendritic system of paleodrainage channels. Processes like evaporation, flooding, erosion, as well as inflow of saline, often acidic and ion-rich groundwater contribute to the (dynamic) nature of the lakes and the composition of the sediments. The region has previously been described as an analog environment for early Mars due to its geological and geophysical similarities. Here, we investigated sediment samples of four lake environments aimed at getting a fundamental understanding of the native microbial communities and the mineralogical and (bio)chemical composition of the sediments they are associated with. The dominant mineral phases in the sediments were quartz, feldspars a

SUBMITTER: Aerts JW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6512757 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature