Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 13, 2026

Establishment of Microbial Eukaryotic Enrichment Cultures from a Chemically Stratified Antarctic Lake and Assessment of Carbon Fixation Potential
Published on: April 20, 2012
Early martian environments: the Antarctic and other terrestrial analogs
R A Wharton1, C P McKay, R L Mancinelli
1Biological Sciences Center, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV 89506.
Abstract:
The comparability of the early environments of Mars and Earth, and the biological evolution which occurred on early earth, motivates serious consideration of the possibility of an early martian biota. Environments which could have contained this early martian life and which may presently contain evidence of this former life include aquatic, ice, soil, and rock habitats. Several analogs of these potential early martian environments, which can provide useful information in searching for extinct life on Mars, are currently available for study on Earth. These terrestrial analogs include the perennially ice-covered lakes and sandstone rocks in the Polar Deserts of Antarctica, surface of snowfields and glaciers, desert soils, geothermal springs, and deep subsurface environments.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Conditions on Early Earth
Conditions on Early Earth
Carbon-dioxide Fixation
Marine Microbial Ecology
Deep Sea Microbial Ecology
Microbes and Climate Change

