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Discovery and microbial content of the driest site of the hyperarid A tacama D esert, C hile
Author(s) -
AzuaBustos Armando,
CaroLara Luis,
Vicuña Rafael
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
environmental microbiology reports
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.229
H-Index - 69
ISSN - 1758-2229
DOI - 10.1111/1758-2229.12261
Subject(s) - desert (philosophy) , mars exploration program , relative humidity , impact crater , arid , astrobiology , environmental science , chemistry , geography , ecology , biology , meteorology , philosophy , epistemology
Summary The A tacama D esert is the driest and oldest desert on E arth. Eleven years ago, the Y ungay region was established as the driest site of this hyperarid desert and also close to the dry limit for life on E arth. Since then, much has been published about the extraordinary characteristics of this site and its pertinence as a M ars analogue model. However, as a result of a more systematic search in the A tacama here, we describe a new site, M aría E lena S outh ( MES ), which is much drier than Y ungay. The mean atmospheric relative humidity ( RH ) at MES was 17.3%, with the RH of its soils remaining at a constant 14% at the depth of 1 m, a value that matches the lowest RH measurements taken by the M ars S cience L aboratory at G ale C rater. Remarkably, we found a number of viable bacterial species in the soil profile at MES using a combination of molecular dependent and independent methods, unveiling the presence of life in the driest place on the A tacama D esert reported to date.