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Grand Prismatic Hot Spring in the Midway Geyser Basin
The Grand Prismatic Hot Spring in the Midway Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park.
More about this image
At 370 feet in diameter, the Grand Prismatic Hot Spring in the Midway Geyser Basin is the largest hot spring in Yellowstone and the third largest in the world. Its temperature is near boiling, ranging in different spots from 63 to 87 degrees Celsius (145.4 to 188.6 degrees Fahrenheit). The dramatic colors are an interplay of physics, chemistry and biology. The blue color is an optical effect and the orange and brown colors are bacteria that live at temperatures near boiling.
These easily visible bacterial mats have been the subject of National Science Foundation-supported research by Tom Schoenfeld and David Mead of Lucigen Corporation.
Lucigen researchers examined the microbes and viruses that are suspended in the crystal-clear water and not nearly as obvious to the casual observer. Although invisible to the naked eye and even to the standard light microscope, viruses have been collected from the water columns of nearby hot springs and, using advanced molecular biology techniques, their genetic signatures have been analyzed. This work has shown that every teaspoon of this water contains hundreds of thousands of viruses comprised of thousands of different viral types. Similar numbers of microbial cells are seen, although they are generally less diverse. This genetic diversity encodes an invaluable resource of biological molecules adapted to function at high temperatures and is being "mined" for use in genetic analysis, disease detection and biofuel production.
This research was initiated through NSF Small Business Innovation Research Phase I and II awards (DMI 0109756 and DMI 0215988) to Lucigen. Ongoing work on the project is currently supported by an additional grant (IIP 0839404), awarded to Lucigen. (Date of Image: 2005-2007)
Credit: David Mead, Lucigen Corporation
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