Limits of life across an altitudinal gradient ina Tropical Dormant Volcano

Details Limits of life across an altitudinal gradient ina Tropical Dormant Volcano Limits of life across an altitudinal gradient ina Tropical Dormant Volcano

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008epsc.conf..845m&link_type=abstract

European Planetary Science Congress 2008, Proceedings of the conference held 21-25 September, 2008 in Münster, Germany. Online a

Physics

Scientific paper

Abstract The most recent missions to Mars have the aim to confirm if life once existed on the planet. In case of no life vestiges found, it exist the possibility of return Mars to ancient conditions when life possibly thrived. The greenhouse gasses releasing it could be necessary in order to raise the temperature, as a result of this change; the water actually trapped into the Martian regolith will be in liquid state again, the atmosphere will became thicker. It has been thought this process could be 100 000 years long. However, during this planetary experiment only a few of microorganisms and invertebrates could survive, the high levels of CO2 and a still thin atmosphere are uphill struggle [1,2]. It is known that some superior plants are capable of survival in similar environmental conditions we expect in a terraformed mars. These type of plants as well as cyanobacteria could reduce the high CO2 levels and produce O2 doing of Mars an habitable place for living [3]. One of the most interesting places on the Earth is the volcano Pico de Orizaba in Mexico; here the wood grows at the highest altitude above sea level on the world. Pinus hartwegii is the only species of tree thriving at this altitude, about 4400 m. In this place the environmental conditions are extremely arduous. At the moment we have evaluated some physical (density, porosity, texture) and chemical (exchangeable bases, cationic exchangeable capacity) properties of soil in order to know if exists some special condition for thriving of P. hartwegii wood. Results According to elemental analysis tests we have found the organic matter in forest soil, just at the timberline has around 5% of organic carbon, meanwhile the grater the high the lesser organic carbon, less than 1%. C/N ratio is ~18 for lower zones, something characteristic for forest soils, above timberline the ratio decreases to values between 10 and 7, this is a carbon loss due to mineralization. Hydraulic conductivity was measured in order to know soil permeability. The rate of sand into the soil reaches 80%, the consequence of this is a water low time of permanence in upper layers. Interchangeable bases were measured (Ca, K, Mg, Na), the presence of these is very poor (<5 cmol/Kg) and it decrease above timberline. Clays content is about 5% and diminish with altitude increase. These are reasons for expect a low nutrient content in this kind of soil. In general way we observe a very young, no evolved soil, with no aggregates of organic matter above 4100 meters.

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