James, Donato and Matteo are in Greenland

James is in Greenland with Donato Giovannelli and Matteo Selci (University of Naples Federico II) for their INTERACT-funded project GHOST: Greenland Homeothermic Springs.

Below is an overview of the trip written by Matteo.

Today we took a day off so I thought it would be a good idea to share with you what we are doing here in Greenland. We are at the Arctic Station in the south of Disko Island.

Our main purpose here is find and sample as many geothermal springs as possible.
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But why Disko Island and why geothermal springs? ​

Disko Island is part of larger region where a vast amounts of volcanoes erupted  ~60 million years ago.

This explain why Disko Island and an Eastern region of Greenland are mainly composed by basalts, a type of rock formed after rapid cooling of lava.

Basaltic rocks are everywhere here, and when you travel along the coastline it is possible to appreciate these incredible structures. In particular, you can observe multiple horizontal lines that represent basaltic layers deposited eruption after eruption.

Disko Island is characterized by several geothermal springs that have never been described from a microbiological point of view.

Looking at these subsurface microbial communities will be interesting to investigate their relation with the underground geochemistry resulting from past volcanic environments.