Florida Tech researchers search for insights into early life on Earth after the Chilean expedition

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BREVARD COUNTY • MELBOURNE, FLORIDA – In a discovery that could advance our understanding of the early evolution of life on Earth, a research team including Associate Professor Andrew Palmer and graduate student Caitlyn Hubric identified Chile’s deepest and northernmost cold seep vents in the ocean floor that emit gases and liquids about 100 miles off the Chilean coast and thousands of feet below the surface.

This most earthly discovery could also provide insights that could benefit future space exploration, Palmer said.

Palmer, who directs Florida Tech’s Astrobiology and Chemical Ecology Laboratory, and Hubric, who has studied with him for the past three years, represented the university on the Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI) expedition through the Atacama Trench.

The trench is a nearly five-mile-deep oceanic trench in the eastern Pacific Ocean that has remained at the same latitude for the past 150 million years, indicating an extremely stable and potentially ancient ecosystem.

The trench’s seeps, found at a depth of 2,836 meters (9,304 feet), provide chemical energy for deep-sea animals that live without sunlight, according to SOI. Such seeps could help astrobiologists understand how life evolved on Earth and how these survival strategies and chemical conditions may sustain life on other planets.

Palmer and Hubric were members of the expedition’s microbiology team and were specifically looking for biosignatures. That meant looking for new microbes and chemical signatures, such as proteins or carbohydrates, that may have existed in the region for millions of years.

In the Wet Lab, master’s student Caitlyn Hubric processes water in a ship laboratory during the research expedition.

The benefits of their research extend beyond life on Earth. They could also shape future space exploration. A big part of the reason they are researching water ecosystems is because of the popularity around Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Jupiter’s Europa, Hubric said.

She said it’s not a perfect analogy, but it’s close enough that they can look for patterns in how the chemical processes of life might work in these locations.

“We hope that some of the questions we answer here will help us in future efforts when we finally explore the solar system,” Hubric said.

Back on campus after the expedition, which ran from May 24 to June 6, they have begun solving those questions by both identifying molecules that guide the search for life and understanding the limitations of the instruments that can detect metabolites , or by early signatures of life, Palmer said.

“If (the instruments) fail to identify traces of life on Earth, where we know there is a lot of life, how can they be successful in a place where that is less likely than a needle in a haystack?” Palmer said.

“The bigger question is: What must we do to be successful in the search for life?”

For Palmer and Hubric, the investigation is just beginning. They test water and sediment samples and the filtrate they remove from their water filters and examine them for interesting microbes. Searching for new metabolism will be an even more extensive process, Palmer said.

“It’s weird to do something where you can’t see the results for weeks or months,” Palmer said. “This is just the beginning.”

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