Earth 4D program co-director Barbara Sherwood Lollar receives Canada’s highest science honour

We realized kind of intellectually
that to a certain degree
the way we think about this
planet whether that’s water
on the planet, life on the planet,
resources on the planet
we tend to think about it
from the very much from the context of the surface,
of a 2 dimensional
pale blue dot.
And we realized that if
we could transform our way of
thinking about the planet
to really
encompass the challenges
of three dimensional science,
of thinking about what the subsurface
means in terms of
exploration for life,
understanding subsurface life,
understanding water resources,
understanding the distribution
of other fluids and gases
in the crust
that this could potentially
transform how we think
about the Earth but most importantly as well
shed light then on
how we might think about exploring other worlds.
One thing that stood out
is that the surface of Mars is a hostile place.
It is dry, cold, and it’s bad radiation.
So where would you want to be
if you were a microbe or any form of life?
You’d want to be underground
is the philosophy.
so that’s what led me to
this partnership with Barb
over the last couple of years because
here is where the expertise lies
to really understand
what a planet like Mars should
potentially behave like
and so we’re transforming the knowledge that we’re learning from the
Earth and trying to fit that into the what we understand about Mars.
There are not a lot of mechanisms to really allow that much free-thinking and inter-disciplinarity,
and I think it is that, that CIFAR is going to be particularly catalytic for us, to be
able to bring together people from extremely different perspectives and then give them
that intellectual freedom to challenge each other, challenge themselves to change the thinking.
Having life in this deep, long-term groundwater on Earth is just opening up an entire field
of science that we did not know to exist 10 years ago.
And so what does it mean?
I think we’re still trying to map that out, but in terms of a whole aspect of biology
that was unknown and how it affects the surface, how it affects the interior, how biology actually
works within these tight limits is really the importance of what’s going on with the
life underground.

Earth 4D program co-director Barbara Sherwood Lollar receives Canada’s highest science honour

Related Articles

Support Us

Earth 4D program co-director Barbara Sherwood Lollar receives Canada’s highest science honour

Follow Us

Related Articles

Support Us