SUNDAY |
4:00 pm - 8:00 pm | Arrival and Check-in (Office Closed 6:00 pm - 7:45 pm) |
6:00 pm | Dinner |
7:30 pm - 7:40 pm | Welcome / Introductory Comments by GRC Site Staff |
7:40 pm - 9:30 pm | Geobiology: Objectives, Significance, Perspectives |
| Discussion Leader: Bruce Runnegar (University of California) |
7:40 pm - 7:50 pm | Bruce Runnegar (University of California, Los Angeles)
"Opening Remarks" |
7:50 pm - 8:25 pm | Nora Noffke (Old Dominion University)
"Turbulent Lifestyle: Benthic Cyanobacteria from the Archean Eon to Today" |
8:25 pm - 8:40 pm | Discussion |
8:40 pm - 9:15 pm | James Farquar (University of Maryland) "Sulfur isotoptes: A perspective linking atmospheric evolution and metabolic activity to early Earth" |
9:15 pm - 9:30 pm | Discussion |
MONDAY |
7:30 am - 8:30 am | Breakfast |
9:00 am - 12:30 pm | Environments of Early Earth |
| Discussion Leader: Yildirim Dilek (University of Miami, Ohio) |
9:00 am - 9:20 am | Stephen Mojzsis (University of Colorado) "Environment for early life in the Hadean/Eoarchean Earth" |
9:20 am - 9:30 am | Discussion |
9:30 am - 9:50 am | Chris Fedo (University of Tennessee) "Constraints on interpreting environments and potential biogenic matter in highly disrupted Early Archean settings" |
9:50 am - 10:00 am | Discussion |
10:00 am | Group Photo / Coffee Break |
10:30 am - 10:50 am | Pascal Philippot (University of Paris, France) "Multible sources of organic carbon in the 3.5 Ga old volcano-sedimentary succession at North Pole (Dresser Formation, Western Australia)" |
10:50 am - 11:00 am | Discussion |
11:00 am - 11:20 am | Mark van Zuilen (Institute of Geophysics, Paris, France) "Sulfur mass independent isotope anomalies in 3.4 Ga sediments of the Barberton Greenstone Belt, South Africa" |
11:20 am - 11:30 am | Discussion |
11:30 am - 11:50 am | Mark Barley (University of Western Australia) "The early evolution of Earth’s atmosphere, links to tectonics, and life in the Archean and Paleoproterozoic" |
11:50 am - 12:00 pm | Discussion |
12:00 pm - 12:20 pm | Lee Kump (The Penn State University) "Biogeochemical perspectives on the Great Oxidation Event" |
12:20 pm - 12:30 pm | Discussion |
12:30 pm | Lunch |
1:30 pm - 4:00 pm | Free Time |
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm | Poster Session with Wine Reception |
6:00 pm | Dinner |
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm | Microbial Drapes of Earth’s Oldest Lands and Oceans |
| Discussion Leader: Therese Sallstedt (Natural History Museum Stockholm, Sweden) |
7:30 pm - 7:50 pm | Katrina Edwards (University of Southern California) "Iron oxidation in the early and modern Earth" |
7:50 pm - 8:00 pm | Discussion |
8:00 pm - 8:20 pm | Andreas Kappler (University of Tuebingen, Germany) "Microbiological processes in deposition and diagenesis of Banded Iron Formations" |
8:20 pm - 8:30 pm | Discussion |
8:30 pm - 8:50 pm | Kurt Konhauser (University of Alberta, Canada) "The emergence of aerobic metal respiring bacteria on land during the Great Oxidation Event" |
8:50 pm - 9:00 pm | Discussion |
9:00 pm - 9:20 pm | Alan Jay Kaufman (University of Maryland) "Reconstructing Earth’s surface oxidation across the Archean-Proterozoic transition" |
9:20 pm - 9:30 pm | Discussion |
TUESDAY |
7:30 am - 8:30 am | Breakfast |
9:00 am - 12:30 pm | Microbial Architecture: Stromatolites and MISS |
| Discussion Leader: Penny Morris-Smith (NASA Johnson Space Center, University of Houston) |
9:00 am - 9:20 am | Dawn Sumner (University of California, Davis) "Extracting microbial community behaviours from microbialite morphology" |
9:20 am - 9:30 am | Discussion |
9:30 am - 9:50 am | Pam Reid (University of Miami, FL) "Lessons learned from modern marine stromatolites" |
9:50 am - 10:00 am | Discussion |
10:00 am | Coffee Break |
10:30 am - 10:50 am | Brian Pratt (University of Saskatchewan, Canada)
"Marine Microbial Limestones" |
10:50 am - 11:00 am | Discussion |
11:00 am - 11:20 am | David Paterson (University of St. Andrews, Scotland)
"Stromatolites, microbial mats and biofilms as ecosystem engineers" |
11:20 am - 11:30 am | Discussion |
11:30 am - 11:50 am | Christoph Heubeck (University of Berlin, Germany) "Towards reconstruction of Middle Archean biomat ecology and metabolisms: Mappable biomats from the Moodies Group (ca. 3.2 Ga), Barberton Greenstone Belt, South" |
11:50 am - 12:00 pm | Discussion |
12:00 pm - 12:20 pm | Tony Prave (University of St. Andrews, Scotland) "Under the Precambrian sunshine: microbial life on land" |
12:20 pm - 12:30 pm | Discussion |
12:30 pm | Lunch |
1:30 pm - 4:00 pm | Free Time |
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm | Poster Session |
6:00 pm | Dinner |
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm | Microbial Life in Silica |
| Discussion Leader: Victoria Petryshyn (University of Southern California) |
7:30 pm - 7:50 pm | David Ward (Montana State University) "Composition, structure and function of hot spring microbial mats considered analogues of stromatolites" |
7:50 pm - 8:00 pm | Discussion |
8:00 pm - 8:20 pm | Sherry Cady (Portland State University) "Chemotrophic biofilm contributions to chert" |
8:20 pm - 8:30 pm | Discussion |
8:30 pm - 8:50 pm | Maud Walsh (Louisiana State University) "Microbial mats preserved in the early Archean cherts of the Barberton Greenstone Belt, South Africa" |
8:50 pm - 9:00 pm | Discussion |
9:00 pm - 9:20 pm | Andy Czaja (University of Wisconsin) "Neoarchean and Paleoproterozoic microbial and ecosystem diversity" |
9:20 pm - 9:30 pm | Discussion |
WEDNESDAY |
7:30 am - 8:30 am | Breakfast |
9:00 am - 12:30 pm | Microbial Mats: Complexity in Layers |
| Discussion Leader: Linda Jahnke (NASA Ames, CA) |
9:00 am - 9:20 am | David Des Marais (NASA Ames, California) "Marine microbial mats and the exploration for life in deep time and space" |
9:20 am - 9:30 am | Discussion |
9:30 am - 9:50 am | Thomas Neu (Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research) "Development of biofilm and microbial mat communities" |
9:50 am - 10:00 am | Discussion |
10:00 am | Coffee Break |
10:30 am - 10:50 am | Lucas Stal (The Netherlands Institute of Ecology) "Structure and function of microbial mats" |
10:50 am - 11:00 am | Discussion |
11:00 am - 11:20 am | Ron Oremland (U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park CA) "Arsenic and the meaning of life" |
11:20 am - 11:30 am | Discussion |
11:30 am - 11:50 am | Pieter Visscher (University of Connecticut) "Formation of lithified micritic laminae in modern marine stromatolites (Bahamas): the role of sulfur cycling" |
11:50 am - 12:00 pm | Discussion |
12:00 pm - 12:20 pm | Christophe Dupraz (University of Connecticut)
"Interactions between calcium, magnesium, and extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) during the formation and early diagenesis of hypersaline microbial carbonates" |
12:20 pm - 12:30 pm | Discussion |
12:30 pm | Lunch |
1:30 pm - 4:00 pm | Free Time |
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm | Poster Session |
6:00 pm | Dinner |
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm | Communication in Biofilms |
| Discussion Leader: Marc Laflamme (Smithsonian Natural History Museum) |
7:30 pm - 7:50 pm | William Costerton (Allegheny-Singer Research Institute) "Biofilms - the predominant microbial mode-of-growth in natural systems" |
7:50 pm - 8:00 pm | Discussion |
8:00 pm - 8:20 pm | Alan Decho (University of South Carolina) "Quorum sensing in biofilms under natural conditions: what happens out there?" |
8:20 pm - 8:30 pm | Discussion |
8:30 pm - 8:50 pm | Amy Schaefer (Washington University)
"ACYL-HSL quorum sensing and microbial ecology" |
8:50 pm - 9:00 pm | Discussion |
9:00 pm - 9:20 pm | Paul Stoodley (University of Southampton, UK) "Bacterial biofilm formation: an ancient prokaryote survival strategy" |
9:20 pm - 9:30 pm | Discussion |
THURSDAY |
7:30 am - 8:30 am | Breakfast |
8:30 am - 9:00 am | Business Meeting |
| Nominations for the next Vice Chair; Fill out Conference Evaluation Forms; Discuss future Site & Scheduling preferences; Election of the next Vice Chair |
9:00 am - 12:30 pm | Origin of Uni- and Multicellularity |
| Discussion Leader: James D. Schiffbauer (Virginia Tech) |
9:00 am - 9:20 am | Emmanuelle Javaux (University of Liege, Belgium)
"Acritarchs in Archean shallow-marine deposits" |
9:20 am - 9:30 am | Discussion |
9:30 am - 9:50 am | Paul Strother (Boston College)
"Morphological Complexity in Freshwater Protocists at 1 Ga: Implications for Paleoecology and Evolution" |
9:50 am - 10:00 am | Discussion |
10:00 am | Coffee Break |
10:30 am - 10:50 am | Shuhai Xiao (Virginia Tech)
"The role of sulfate reduction in fossil pyritization and pyrite rim formation in early diagenetic chert nodules" |
10:50 am - 11:00 am | Discussion |
11:00 am - 11:20 am | Stefan Bengtson (Natural History Museum Stockholm, Sweden) "Mats, colonies, multicellulars - dissecting the Proterozoic mire" |
11:20 am - 11:30 am | Discussion |
11:30 am - 11:50 am | Diane Newman (Cal Tech)
"Rethinking the meaning of (2-methyl) hopane biomarkers" |
11:50 am - 12:00 pm | Discussion |
12:00 pm - 12:20 pm | Shucheng Xie (University of Wuhan, China)
"Molecular records of microbial changes in Mesoproterozoic rocks of North China" |
12:20 pm - 12:30 pm | Discussion |
12:30 pm | Lunch |
1:30 pm - 4:00 pm | Free Time |
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm | Poster Session |
6:00 pm | Dinner |
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm | Life Elsewhere |
| Discussion Leader: Carl Pilcher (NASA Ames) |
7:30 pm - 7:50 pm | Michael New (NASA Headquarters) "The Co-Evolution of Planets and their Biospheres" |
7:50 pm - 8:00 pm | Discussion |
8:00 pm - 8:20 pm | Jack Farmer (Arizona State University) "Science-driven selection of landing sites for future in situ life detection and sample return missions to Mars: the role of terrestrial analogue studies" |
8:20 pm - 8:30 pm | Discussion |
8:30 pm - 9:10 pm | John Grotzinger (CalTech) "Mars Science Laboratory: the search for habitable environments and preservation of biosignatures" |
9:10 pm - 9:30 pm | Discussion |
FRIDAY |
7:30 am - 8:30 am | Breakfast |
9:00 am | Departure |