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| Earth’s Subsurface Biosphere
Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (ESB-IGERT) |
| http://oregonstate.edu/dept/igert/
This interdisciplinary doctoral program brings together students with
interests in microbiology, geology, and engineering to work in the emerging
new field of geomicrobiology. It is jointly operated by Oregon
State and Portland State University
and has associations with Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory and the Idaho National
Laboratory. The program is funded by a $2.7 million grant from the
National Science Foundation IGERT
program and is directed by Martin
Fisk, professor of Marine
Geology and Geophysics at OSU. Nineteen faculty who are associated
with the Subsurface Biosphere Initiative are also affiliated with the
IGERT Program. |
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| Western Region Hazardous Substance
Research Center (WRHSRC) |
| http://wrhsrc.oregonstate.edu
This EPA funded Center develops in-situ treatment methods for cleanup
of hazardous substances, with a major focus on bioremediation. The Center
is a partnership between Oregon State
University and Stanford University
and is headquartered at Oregon State University with Dr.
Lewis Semprini serving as the Center Director. The Center is currently
funded at a level of $1.1 million per year for five years. Many of the
faculty associated with theSubsurface Biosphere Initiative perform research
related to the bioremediation of hazardous substances and are affiliated
with the WRHSRC. |
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| H. J. Andrews Long-term Ecological
Research Site (HJA-LTER) |
| http://www.fsl.orst.edu/lter
The H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest was established in 1948. During
its first 20 years, research focused on management effects on watersheds,
soils, and vegetation. In the 1970's it was a center for ecosystem research
as part of the International Biological Programme-Coniferous Forest Biome.
In 1980, the Forest became a member of the first cohort of the National
Science Foundation's Long-term Ecological
Research sites and research emphasis moved towards interdisciplinary
studies. With more than 50 years of research history, the 6400-ha site
is a valuable resource for subsurface biosphere studies. Examples include
studies of nutrient cycling in the hyporheic zones of streams, long-term
decomposition studies of coarse woody debris, nitrogen and carbon cycling
in soils, and diversity
of soil microorganisms. |
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| Integrated Ocean Drilling Program
(IODP) |
| http://www.iodp.org/
Marine hydrothermal vents were discovered by OSU scientists in 1977.
This discovery revealed an ecosystem driven by the Earth’s chemical
energy and suggested that a subsurface biosphere existed beneath the ocean
floor. IODP is an international program to collect subseafloor samples
with ocean going drilling ships, and one primary goal of IODP is to understand
the abundance and variety of microbes below the sea floor and their impact
on cycling of key elements such as carbon, calcium, sulfur, iron and other
metals between the oceans and the sea floor. Martin
Fisk, professor of Marine
Geology and Geophysics at OSU has been an advocate and participant
in outfitting the drilling ship with a microbiology lab and was one of
the first to use the lab to determine abundance of microbes in the sea
floor. |
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| NSF–Genome Enabled Grant |
| Daniel Arp,
professor of botany and
plant pathology and six other investigators on campus received funding
in 2004 for a 5 year, $2M project funded by the Enabled Investigations
of Environmental and Engineered Systems division of the Biocomplexity
program at the National Science Foundation. The project involves an
examination of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (subsurface microorganisms) in
waste water treatment. These bacteria are critical to the removal of nitrogen
from waste water, but are also susceptible to inhibition by a variety of
compounds in the wastewater stream. Modern genomics approaches will be used
to identify genes in these bacteria that serve as indicators of the status
of nitrogen transformations. |
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