Funding: Helmholtz InnoPool Project

Project period: 2022 - 2024

Cooperations:

Prof. Michael Bott, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany

Prof. Björn Usadel, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany

Prof. Dietrich Kohlheyer, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany

Dr. Sebastian Hölz, Geomar Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, Kiel

The main goals of the project are to study physiological adaptation of microbial communities and individual microbes to very high CO₂ concentrations and explore microbial utilization of CO₂ for establishing CO₂-based bioeconomic value chains. We will use existing drill core samples from the Eger Rift (ER, terrestrial site, Czech Republic) and samples from the Grimsey Hydrothermal Field (GHF, marine site, north of Iceland) – two sites exhibiting extreme levels of the greenhouse gas CO₂. As the composition of microbial communities depends on the available substrates to generate energy and biomass, the study of the “background” mineralogy is also required to understand complex interactions of biological and geochemical processes to get a comprehensive picture of the coupling between biosphere and geosphere and assess the potential of biological and mineral resources.

By integrating expertise from different scientific fields of the involved partner institutes (geophysics ↔ mineralogy ↔ chemistry ↔ microbiology ↔ bioinformatics ↔ bioengineering), the project aims to generate a holistic understanding of a relevant Earth system, as outlined in the POF program “Changing Earth”. More specifically, the project will address central research questions of thematic cluster 2, as the studies aim to explore the biological resources evolved in the CO₂-rich geological sites ER and GHF as basis to develop biotechnological processes using CO₂ as substrate for microbially synthesized products. The project will thus, investigate potential innovative approaches to reduce the carbon footprint. Furthermore, investigations at the GHF can help to better understand the role of CO₂-rich fluids in the formation of marine mineral resources.