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

Joost Aerts (1) , Rob van Spanning (1) , Jessica Flahaut (2) , Douwe Molenaar (1) , Phil Bland (3) , Matt Genge (4) , Pascale Ehrenfreund (5, 6) , Zita Martins (7)

1 VU - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam [Amsterdam]
2 CRPG - Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques
3 Department of Applied Geology [Perth]
4 Department of Earth Science and Engineering [Imperial College London]
5 Leiden Observatory [Leiden]
6 Space Policy Institute [Washington]
7 Instituto Superior Técnico

Aerts et al. Microbes in Terrestrial Mars Analogs in the distributions of microbial communities were significant, and could only to a minor degree be explained by underlying environmental conditions. The communities are likely significantly influenced by small scale local effects caused by variations in geological settings and dynamic interactions caused by aeolian transport and flooding and evaporation events.

Mots clés: This article was submitted to Extreme Microbiology; a section of the journal Frontiers in Microbiology Yilgarn Craton; microbial communities; 16S sequencing; halophiles; Mars; geology

Domaines: Planète et Univers [physics]; Sciences de la Terre

Joost Aerts, Rob van Spanning, Jessica Flahaut, Douwe Molenaar, Phil Bland, et al.. Microbial Communities in Sediments From Four Mildly Acidic Ephemeral Salt Lakes in the Yilgarn Craton (Australia) – Terrestrial Analogs to Ancient Mars. Frontiers in Microbiology, 2019, 10, ⟨10.3389/fmicb.2019.00779⟩. ⟨hal-02157885⟩