1. Biofilms and their interaction with the environment
Description: This section discusses research on the phylogenetic and functional diversity of present and ancient microbial communities, the microbe-microbe and microbe-environment interactions under various aquatic conditions, nutrient uptake, metal/toxin tolerance, carbon storage capabilities, and microbial communication among microbes. In this session, we invite interdisciplinary geobiology research contributions including, for instance, omics techniques, spatially resolved analyses, or culture experiments that contribute to a better understanding of the interactions within biofilms and between biofilms and their environments.
Keynote speaker: Erika Kothe, University of Jena
2. Microbialites through deep time: unique archives for environmental reconstructions
Description: This section highlights microbialites as archives for paleo-environmental reconstructions, synthesizing field, and literature-derived stratigraphic, geochemical, and paleo-biological (big) data. The aim is to raise critical questions about the evolution of microbial biodiversity, sediment and carbon cycling, and Earth’s oxygenation. We invite contributions in the fields of sedimentology, (isotope) geochemistry, and mineralogy to explore reconstructed microbial habitats and paleo-environments under severely different atmosphere-hydrosphere-biosphere conditions through Earth’s history.
Keynote speaker: Johanna Marin-Carbonne, University of Lausanne
3. Microbialites in variable geological settings: from continents to the deep sea
Description: This session explores the vast morphological and environmental diversity of microbial habitats covering continental settings to the deep sea. We invite contributions tackling sedimentologic and geochemical evidence that aid in reconstructing the environments in which they formed over Earth’s history.
Keynote speaker: Stanley Awramik, UC Santa Barbara
4. Mutual impact of microbialite mineralogy and environment
Description: This session targets microbialite mineralogy and geochemistry as proxies for authigenic mineral formation microbial metal uptake, and diagenesis. We encourage contributions addressing models of mineral and more generally microbialite formation, biomineralization processes, solution-solid geochemical equilibria, and the kinetics of mineral formation under diverse conditions. Further, we invite studies dealing with the fate of modern microbial ecosystems and the threat of their decline on a changing Earth.
Keynote speaker: Gernot Arp, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
