Swansong biospheres: refuges for life and novel microbial biospheres on terrestrial planets near the end of their habitable lifetimes
@article{OMalleyJames2012SwansongBR, title={Swansong biospheres: refuges for life and novel microbial biospheres on terrestrial planets near the end of their habitable lifetimes}, author={Jack T. O'Malley-James and Jane Greaves and John A. Raven and Charles S. Cockell}, journal={International Journal of Astrobiology}, year={2012}, volume={12}, pages={99 - 112} }
The future biosphere on Earth (as with its past) will be made up predominantly of unicellular micro-organisms. [] Key Method A simple, latitude-based climate model incorporating eccentricity and obliquity variations is used as a guide to the temperature evolution of the Earth over the next 3 Gyr. This allows inferences to be made about potential refuges for life, particularly in mountains and cold-trap (ice) caves and what forms of life could live in these environments. Results suggest that in high latitude…
47 Citations
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