Investigators

Eric Boyd is the deputy PI of the Rock Powered Life NAI. Eric’s research combines molecular biological and geochemical analyses through the lens of evolutionary biology to understand the distribution and extent of diversity of metabolic strategies in geological environments. Laboratory- and field-based studies are integrated through application of contemporary microbial physiology and next generation sequencing, geochemical, bioinformatics and isotopic techniques, to determine why such diversity exists. Applied to RPL...

Brazelton is a microbial ecologist with expertise in analyzing genomic data from unusual environments. His lab will be involved in the sequencing of environmental DNA and RNA from life-powering rocks. These genomic data will be integrated with a wide variety of multidisciplinary data collected by the RPL team and curated in publicly available. The goal is to facilitate the availability and synthesis of large interdisciplinary datasets in order to infer...

Dawn Cardace studies microbe-mineral interactions using research approaches drawn from geochemical modeling and mineralogical characterization. Within RPL, she is the team leader of the NAI-funded Coast Range Ophiolite Microbial Observatory (CROMO) project, with a focus on petrography and interpretations of micro-FTIR data of serpentinites. She will fine-tune the use of microFTIR for analysis of serpentinites and conduct micro-scale mapping of mineral and organic components in naturally occurring and experimentally altered...

Email: Tori Hoehler is a chemist who studies microbial ecology from a bioenergetic perspective, with a focus on hydrogen-utilizing metabolisms and functionality under chronically low energy flux. He and his group will work to characterize environmental effects on cell-scale metabolic energy balance, as a way of understanding how biological potential may vary across the range of conditions encountered in water-rock systems. They are also working to develop and employ sensitive...

Lisa is a geochemist and geomicrobiologist who uses microscale chemical imaging tools to understand the chemistry of dynamically altering low temperature geologic systems and the influence of biotic processes on this alteration. Within the RPL NAI, Lisa will conduct laboratory experiments to identify water-rock reaction pathways and abiotic (mineral) and biotic catalysis of these reactions. She will also characterize changes in the redox state and mineralogy of rocks from serpentinite...

Tom McCollom Email: tom.mccollom@lasp.colorado.edu Dr. McCollom studies fluid-rock interactions with a focus on serpentinites and acid-sulfate alteration. One of the main objectives of this work is to study how geologic environments create forms of chemical energy that can support chemosynthetic microbial communities, both on Earth and on other planetary bodies. Other areas of interest include abiotic synthesis of organic compounds in geologic systems and life in deep subsurface environments.

Shuhei Ono is a stable isotope geochemist. He uses multiple sulfur isotopes and clumped methane isotopologues to gain new insights into microbiology of rock powered life. In particular, his research group examines the source of methane and sulfur cycles at serpentinization sites.

Matt Schrenk is a geo-microbiologist interested in microbial evolution and adaptations to subsurface environments. He and his lab focus on characterization of the microbiology of ecosystems associated with the serpentinization of ultramafic rocks in marine and continental settings. With the RPL team, Matt will characterize the growth and activity of microorganisms and their relationship to geochemical and geophysical processes such as fluid flow, water-rock reaction, etc.

Everett Shock and members of his research group, GEOPIG, apply thermodynamic calculations to understand the driving forces behind geochemical processes, microbial metabolisms, and biosynthetic pathways. Field work and lab analyses elucidate mechanisms by which chemotrophic microbes access energy and nutrients from geochemical environments. GEOPIG also tests the reactivity of organic compounds in water at elevated temperatures and pressures. Within RPL, the Shock lab is providing the logistical and scientific interface...

John Spear is a microbial ecologist who works on the microbial community characterization of ‘unique’ environments (think extreme environments but, aren’t they all extreme?...) John’s lab will be involved in the sequencing of environmental DNA and RNA of samples from RPL subsurface field sites. A goal of the work is to infer patterns of microbiologic activity that have contributed to attributes of the rock record, e.g. mineral speciation, and hypothesize...

Alexis Templeton is the Principal Investigator of the Rock-Powered Life NAI. She is a Geomicrobiologist with expertise in microbe/mineral interactions, biomineralization, chemical imaging, spectroscopy, and isotope geochemistry. Alexis will direct research focused on defining the pathways and products of abiotic and microbial electron-transfer processes in laboratory systems, and she is actively engaged in serpentinization field studies based in Oman.

Masako Tominaga was trained in Marine Geophysics (Ph.D 2009). One of the Tominaga Lab's research goals is to establish a geophysical monitoring scheme to delineate in-situ serpentinization and carbonation processes on land and at sea at various spatial and temporal scales.