Charles Camsell Public Lecture Series
Knock, knock - anybody home? Serpentinite-hosted springs, portals into the subsurface biosphere and their relevance to search for extra-terrestrial life
A Public Lecture Sponsored by the Northwest Territories and Nunavut Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists (NAPEG).
Where: Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre auditorium (4750 48 Street)
When: Wednesday, November 27th, 19:00 to 21:00
Looking for life on other bodies in the solar system requires selecting potential locations that are habitable and accessible, and that also preserve signatures of life. To help in the selection of these locations, we turn to the only planet where we know life exists: Earth. This talk examines whether water-rock reactions, i.e. serpentinization, in ultramafic rocks can support life and whether that life is detectable. Serpentinite-hosted springs provide access to the subsurface biosphere without extensive drilling and act as analogues for other ultramafic planetary bodies.
Penny Morrill Ph.D.
Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Memorial University of Newfoundland
Penny Morrill is a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. She received her PhD from the University of Toronto, where she studied the biodegradation of dry-cleaning fluids and other solvents in groundwater. Subsequently, she has worked at the Carnegie Institution for Science, McMaster University, and the Institute for the Study of Earth's Interior, Japan, studying organic synthesis and degradation and the isotopic fractionation associated with these processes.
Dr. Morrill leads the Diverse Environmental Laboratory and Terrestrial Analogue Studies (DELTAS) Research Group at Memorial University. The research group has focused on using biogeochemistry to solve environmental problems such as climate change mitigation, acid mine drainage remediation, and reservoir souring prevention. Dr. Morrill’s research group also uses biogeochemistry to study life and its preservation at sites of serpentinization.
