Events

UTIG Seminar Series: Cornelia Rasmussen, UTIG

WATCH A RECORDING OF THE TALK

Speaker: Cornelia Rasmussen, Postdoctoral Fellow, UTIG

Host: Chris Lowery

Title: Colorado Plateau Coring Project (CPCP): A continuous, globally exportable chronostratigraphy of non-marine Triassic environmental change from Western North America

Abstract: Developing exportable chronostratigraphic frameworks is crucial to test first-order hypotheses about the correlation and duration of major evolutionary and paleoenvironmental events in Earth history. The early Mesozoic strata in western North America preserves a critical non-marine archive of low-paleolatitude biotic and environmental change. Outcrop-based geochronologic age constraints are difficult to put in an accurate stratigraphic framework because lateral facies changes and discontinuous outcrops allow for multiple interpretations. Past and future drilling initiatives on the Colorado Plateau seek to remedy this situation and test hypothesis about such as if a biotic turnover event recorded by vertebrate and palynomorph fossils in the Chinle Formation at Petrified Forest National Park coincided with the Manicouagan impact event.

UTIG Brown Bag: Rob Domeyko

Informal weekly presentations by UTIG students and researchers. Bring your lunch!

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Speaker: Rob Domeyko, Graduate Research Assistant, UTIG

Title: Elusive Ice-age Coral Hunters: Vanuatu Edition

Habitability Seminar: Victoria Meadows, University of Washington

A seminar from the Center for Planetary Systems Habitability

Watch the recorded talk (UT Zoom sign-in required)

Title: Terrestrial Exoplanet Characterization and the Search for Life

Speaker: Professor Victoria Meadows, University of Washington

https://habitability.utexas.edu/events/

Hot Science At Home "Fire Ants and Zombie Ants"

Join us for a Hot Science – Cool Talks event from the comfort of your home with Dr. Rob Plowes!

The red imported fire ant is an invasive species in Texas that can produce life-threatening allergic reactions in people, has major costs to agriculture, and causes severe impacts to native fauna. Dr. Rob Plowes researches one of the fire ant’s deadliest enemies – tiny flies, which actually turn ants into zombie-like living incubators for their offspring!

Enjoy the science and then participate in a live Q&A session with Dr. Plowes.

Habitability Seminar: Carole Lakrout and Nicola Tisato, JSG

A seminar from the Center for Planetary Systems Habitability

Watch the recorded talk (UT Zoom sign-in required)

Title: The Biotic Influence on Speleothem Morphology

Speaker: Carole Lakrout, Undergraduate Student, Jackson School of Geosciences and Nicola Tisato, Professor, Department of Geological Sciences, Jackson School of Geosciences

Abstract: Studying life and life-mediated deposits in caves can provide information about habitability and mineral-life interactions in extreme environments and other planets. Asperge and Breezeway are examples of caves containing mineral deposits (helictites) whose formation is orchestrated by life. Such helictites grow in an area with little water, no light, and on a substrate that is rich in heavy-metals. Two specific helictites morphologies from Breezeway are of interest for our research: acicular and tubular. The former are made of aragonite, and their formation can be explained abiotically. Tubular morphologies are composed of calcite and present a central hole that challenges an abiotic genesis hypothesis. Similar to Asperge cave, we hypothesize that the tubular helictites from Breezeway formed biotically as well.

We used high-resolution imagery to seek biotic films, study textures, and chemical elements. SEM images reveal that small calcite “flakes” cover larger calcite crystals and small filaments create bridges between the calcite “flakes” and the calcite crystal. We suggest that such filaments are extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), which is a remnant of microbial life activity.

On acicular samples, we mostly observe pristine aragonite needles. However, on a few acicular samples, we observe what appears to be EPS. We suggest that such an EPS might represent the initial stages of the microbial colonization of an abiotic speleothem.

This research furthers the understanding that life exists in extreme environments and can create complex mineral deposits. Understanding how life can thrive in these conditions is a starting point for the study of life on other planets. Given that caves are present on Mars and other planetary bodies, we suggest a potential way to search for past or present evidence of life in the geological record.

https://habitability.utexas.edu/events/