Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology

Support for Drilling in Barberton Greenstone Belt

PI: James Farquhar

This proposal requests funds for partial support of drilling of seven short drill cores at five sites (three sedimentary sequences and two volcanic sequences) in the Barberton Greenstone Belt. Other funds to support drilling have been approved in an ICDP proposal and are in the process of being secured through proposals to a variety of international agencies. This proposal is a request for involvement of NASA funds in this effort. The relevance to objectives of the Exobiology program are provided by the record that these core materials will provide of the early evolution of life in the form of natural repositories of evolutionary history and of the evolution of early life in a microbial world.
This proposal is being submitted with James Farquhar as PI, and is part of a much larger effort. Relevant excerpts of the text of the ICDP proposal will form the remainder of this proposal. The full ICDP proposal is included as supporting documentation with this proposal.