Category: Media

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Manganese and oxidation in a former lake on Mars

A new paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets describes several manganese-rich features in sandstones of the Murray Formation on Gale crater Mars. Textural, chemical, and photographic evidence were used by the team, which included Swanner, to suggest that the manganese enrichments could have formed during the lake stage. This is significant because many … Continue reading Manganese and oxidation in a former lake on Mars

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Zackry Stevenson and Michelle Chamberlain awarded Fellowships

Zackry Stevenson was awarded funding from Itasca Grad Research ‘Director’s Fellowship’. His project is “Influence of Molybdenum on Nitrogen Fixation in Mo-Limited Deming Lake.” He will perform incubations of nitrogen fixation with Mo amendments this summer at Deming Lake. Michelle Chamberlain was awarded the Itasca Grad Research ‘Director’s Fellowship’ fund and the John Tester Graduate Research … Continue reading Zackry Stevenson and Michelle Chamberlain awarded Fellowships

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Swanner authors article for The Conversation about Deming Lake work

A new article in The Conversation describes the Geo-bio-chem group’s work at Deming Lake in Itasca State Park. Deming Lake is chemically layered, much like Earth’s Archean-aged oceans. Our work investigates whether one of Deming Lake’s key biological features, a subsurface chlorophyll maximum layer, might have also been a common feature in those early oceans. … Continue reading Swanner authors article for The Conversation about Deming Lake work

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PhD Student Michelle Chamberlain awarded NASA FINESST

PhD student Michelle Chamberlain was selected to receive a competitive 3-year fellowship from NASA. The Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) will support Michelle’s dissertation investigations of microbially-driven nitrogen cycling in a ferruginous lake. This lake has similar characteristics to past oceans during the Precambrian Era (when microbes ruled the … Continue reading PhD Student Michelle Chamberlain awarded NASA FINESST

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New Wikipedia articles by ISU Microbial Ecology students!!

Is it your goal for the end-of-year holidays to learn more about microbes? @IowaStateU students in Microbial Ecology have written or revised 20 Wikipedia articles with @WikiEducation about microbes!! @ISU_Micrograd @GeoAtmo_ISU — Elizabeth D. Swanner (@betsyswanner) November 27, 2022

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Rusty soils and filmy water

Zackry Stevenson recently authored an ISU Extension publication with Mia Riddley and Betsy Swanner about rusty soils and filmy water. It describes some environmental occurrence of iron common to Iowa, and also how microbes mediate transformations of iron between its different forms.’ It is available for download here: https://store.extension.iastate.edu/Product/16548

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Course produces videos describing their research

Students in GEOL 406/506 in Spring 2022 made a series of 3 YouTube videos about our research question, methods, and results: What is a meromictic lake? Methods to investigate lake meromixis Are four lakes in Itasca State Park meromictic? Students were mentored on this project by Dr. Sajjad Akam.

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Deming Lake has a Wikipedia page!

Check out the new Wikipedia page on Deming Lake, drafted by Liza Bryant-Tapper, Lauren Netz, Pratik Poudel, and Heeyeon Sun. They were all students in GEOL 406/506, which went to Itasca State Park in Minnesota to answer the question of whether four lakes in the park are meromictic. Deming is!

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Zackry Stevenson awarded NASA Fellowship!

Zak was selected as a NASA fellowship awardee at Iowa State University from the NASA Iowa Space Grant Consortium (ISGC). This fellowship will aid his training in Microbial Ecology and Astrobiology. Congratulations, Zak!!