COLLECTING DEEP SUBSURFACE WATERS AT LUPIN MINE, MAY 2004

Mining facilities (left) are connected to the living quarters (right) with a long unheated covered walkway.	TC, Timo, and Corien in the walkway.
At 1100 meters below the surface. The yellow bag at the top left of the picture is the ventilation conduit which brings in fresh air from the surface.	TC and Lisa preparing a borehole for sampling.
One must always take good notes.	Water samples were obtained anerobically.

DRILLING PERMAFROST CORES AT HIGH LAKE, JULY 2006

View of High Lake with glacial erratics.	View of camp: drilling rig (center), core processing shack (right), and typical housing (left).
The drilling setup	TC holds onto the core (inside a PVC core liner) as it comes out of the drilling rod.
Corien and Daniel McGown prep cores in the anaerobic glove bag which was set up in the core processing shack.	One of the cores (532-534 m) inside the glove bag.
Sunset 11:20 pm	Sunrise 3:07 am
In the lab, cores were surface sterilized and broken in half with a core splitter in order to reveal a fresh, uncontaminated surface.	The freshly fractured surface of a core. After surface sterlization, cores were handled asceptically. All materials coming into contact with the cores were pre-sterilized.
Cores were then placed inside sterile jars with the freshly fractured surface in contact with the medium and incubated at low temperatures.	After 40 days of incubation at 4 degrees Celsius, growth is evident. View from underneath of a rock core (dark rectangle) and microbial growth (whitish, irregular edges).
The same core with growth (white streaks) evident between the core and the agar (viewed from underneath through the agar).	No growth is evident under or around this core (viewed from underneath through the agar).

INTERNATIONAL ALPINE AND POLAR MICROBIOLOGY CONFERENCE, 2006

Corien giving her presentation.

In the Austrian Alps on the Stubaier Glacier.

FUN IN THE SNOW

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, 2005

Life in Extreme Environments Journalist Workshop (sponsored by the University of Colorado, Boulder). August 2005	Look at all those microbes (green, yellow, orangey-red slime)! In this stream, the waters from two hot springs come together. Because the waters are two different temperatures and have different mineral contents, they support different types of microorganisms.
	Hot, hot, hot!