Author: Jacob  Buffo,   (Dartmouth College)

Designation: 

Description:
The likely ubiquity of brines across the solar system has made them a frontrunner in the discussion of habitable environments beyond Earth. This is bolstered by the flourishing microbiomes found in saline terrestrial analogs. On Earth, the solidification of brines leads to a permeable ice matrix bathed in interstitial brine that acts as a substrate for microfauna. Understanding the biogeochemical evolution of this complex multiphase environment will aid in quantifying the habitability of ice-ocean/brine environments and provide biosignature detectability estimates for planetary ices. Sea ice is a well-studied end member, but with the diverse chemistries proposed for brines throughout the solar system, constraining how variable environmental pressures impact the habitability of ice-brine systems is imperative in identifying and understanding astrobiological regions of interest. The hypersaline lakes of central British Columbia offer a unique laboratory to carry out such investigations. These chemically diverse basins seasonally fill, evaporate, and freeze forming tens to hundreds of individual brine pools, providing a novel environment to investigate the influence of an array of thermochemical stressors on the biogeochemistry of the wintertime ice cover. Here, we present the first measurements of the structural, thermochemical, and biological properties of the ice covers and brines of these lakes. We discuss the relevance of our results to ice-ocean/brine environments in the solar system and introduce plans for incorporating our results into models of planetary ices.

Category: Scientific Program Abstract > Special Sessions > SS49 Limnological Processes Beneath Ice Cover