Upcoming cruise featured in WSJ
Our upcoming expedition to the Atlantis Massif, "Building blocks of life" was featured in the Wall Street Journal! The 2-month cruise departs in mid-April. We will be drilling boreholes into the rocky Atlantis Massif, and looking for organic molecules that may form abiotically.
Lost City: Between Art and Science
The UofSC McKissick Museum is hosting an exhibit by artist / scientist Anna Davidson, "Lost City: Between Art and Science". Anna participated in the 2018 Lost City cruise and has created an incredible series of pieces that show how unique the field is.
Cruise to Marianas Forearc
Maddie and Susan spent 27 days with the ROV Jason on the R/V Kilo Moana sampling fluids from IODP boreholes on the Marianas forearc. We are looking at the carbon transformations that happen in subduction zones - what is recycled into the mantle and what is returned? At two of the four boreholes fluid pHs were >12!
Lang lab on the move
The Lang lab is moving to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution as Susan starts a new position as the Director of the National Ocean Sciences Accelerator Mass Spectrometry facility (NOSAMS).
Congratulations to Aaron Mau!
Congratulations to Aaron Mau on successfully defending his M.Sc. "Characterizations of Dissolved Organic Carbon at Hydrothermal Systems of the Mid-Cayman Rise"
Congratulations to Jess and Jess!
Congratulations to Jessica Frankle on successfully defending her M.Sc. "Radium at the Lost City and Mid-Cayman Rise hydrothermal fields"
Congratulations also to Jessica Rodgers on being awarded the Marine Science Undergraduate Research Award!
Caught on Camera: Undersea Earthquake
While the Lang lab was at sea, a large 7.7M earthquake hit nearby. During one of the subsequent aftershocks we caught what happens in the deep sea when one of these earthquakes hits: Shrimpquake!
Check out the media release and video footage here.
Lang lab goes to vent fields on the mid-Cayman Rise
The mid-Cayman Rise spreading center is home to two different vent fields hosted on different rock types and with a wide range of temperatures. What a good opportunity to pin down how these physical parameters impact fluid geochemistry and, in particular, the fate of carbon (NSF funded). Also a good opportunity to test the importance of pressure to microorganisms (NASA funded).
New papers published out of the Lang lab
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Tran Nguyen publishing the results of her M.Sc. research, showing that the fractionation factors ofhydrogenotrophic methanogens is larger under lower hydrogen conditions. Congratulations Tran! [Nguyen et al., 2020, GCA, link here]
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Lang and colleagues Steen and Osburn synthesizing what is known about Carbon in the Deep Biosphere [Lang et al., 2019, RiMG, pdf here]
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Lang and colleage Brazelton synthesizing what is known about the habitability of the serpentinite subsurface [Lang and Brazelton, 2019, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 378: 20180429, pdf here]
Jess got a best poster award at the Southeastern Biogeochemical Symposium!
University of South Carolina hosted the 6th annual Southeastern Biogeochemical Symposium. A day and a half of outstanding presentations on geochemistry, oceanography, ecology, astrobiology, biology, and geology. And Lang Lab M.Sc. student Jess Frankle and undergraduate Cameron Henderson presented windy, outdoor posters. Congratulations to Jess on winning 3rd place in the best poster award!
Lost City cruise wraps up
Despite dodging hurricanes and tropical storms, we were able to spend 6 days diving at Lost City with ROV Jason. Here we are collecting water samples from the IMAX flange using our newly developed HOG sampler.
Full details on the Lost City expedition can be found at our dedicated website.
Our Lost City cruise in the news
Our Lost City expedition has been reported on by the Smithsonian Magazine and during a interview with Susan and CTV's This Morning
Testing the HOG sampler!
Collecting pristine samples from deep sea hydrothermal vents is not easy. After a year and a half of design, UofSC machine shop time, special orders from awesome suppliers like McLane and Keika and Titanium Joe, funding from NSF and the Deep Carbon Observatory, the Hydrothermal Organic Geochemistry (HOG) sampler is ready for its pool test.
Tran presented her M.Sc. work at Goldschmidt
Tran's presented her research on what controls the 13C isotopic signatures of methane, lipids, amino acids, and biomass in methanogens at Goldschmidt. Susan also presented a keynote talk on serpentinization, carbon, and life.
The Lost City website is now live
We'll be heading out to the Lost City Hydrothermal field in September, ready to collect fluids and rocks and chimneys with an ROV. A dedicated website with all the details is here.
