Hydrothermal systems have prevailed throughout geological history on earth, and ancient ARCHAEAN hydrothermal deposits could provide clues to understanding earth's earliest biosphere. Modern hydrothermal systems support a plethora of microorganisms and macroorganisms, and provide good comparisons for paleontological interpretation of ancient hydrothermal systems. However, all of the microfossil...

In the past few decades, chemosynthetic ecosystems at deep-sea hydrothermal vents have received attention as plausible analogues to the early ecosystems of Earth, as well as to extraterrestrial ecosystems. These ecosystems are sustained by chemical energy obtained from inorganic redox substances (e.g., H2S, CO2, H2, CH4, and O2) in hydrothermal fluids and ambient seawater. The chemical and isot...

Impacts are common geologic features on the terrestrial planets throughout the solar system, and on at least Earth and Mars impacts have induced hydrothermal convection. Impact-generated hydrothermal systems have been suggested to possess the same life supporting capability as hydrothermal systems associated with volcanic activity. However, evidence of fossil microbial colonization in impact-ge...

The aim of this paper is to review some of the economic drivers of large scale bioregionalisation, using examples from deep sea hydrothermal vent communities, the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic, and Australia. These economic drivers are mainly recent conservation efforts, while early 20th century bioregionalisation was driven by 19th century taxonomy and exploration to assess available biological ...

Monitoring Yellowstone National Park’s hydrothermal systems and establishing hydrothermal baselines are the main goals of an ongoing collaborative effort between Yellowstone National Park’s Geology program and Utah State University’s Remote Sensing Services Laboratory. During the first years of this research effort, improvements were made in image acquisition, processing and calibration. In 200...

Thermal and hydrothermal biochars were characterized, and adsorption of bisphenol A (BPA), 17α-ethinyl estradiol (EE2) and phenanthrene (Phen) was determined to investigate the sorption characteristic difference between the two types of biochars. Thermal biochars were composed mostly of aromatic moieties, with low H/C and O/C ratios as compared to hydrothermal ones having diverse functional gro...