SPEAKERS & EVENTS
A Window on Dark Life
Friday, December 10, 2021
6:00pm
ZOOM webinar
Mike Taylor
Deep within an incompletely explored cave system in central Tennessee lies a shallow pool that cavers call “the Petroleum Passage,” because of both its strong smell and floating “tarballs” that rise from black “tar patches” on the sandy floor. Rather than a sign of pollution, this ancient, molecularly degraded petroleum emerges from deep within the Earth. It carries unusual microbes that appear to support a large population of cave insects and salamanders, creating a food chain based on chemical nutrients rising from below–rather than the familiar sunlight and photosynthesis of the surface world.
A research team co-led by new chapter member Michael Ray Taylor, FN 21, has discovered hundreds of strange species within this passage, including organisms previously found only in deep hydrothermal vents of the Pacific Ocean, in Antarctica’s Lake Vostok (beneath kilometers of polar ice), and emerging from volcanic hot springs. How did life from such diverse places wind up in Middle Tennessee? The answer, Taylor believes, may be a deep global biosphere, home to the most ancient life on Earth and a model for life that may exist today beneath the surfaces of Mars and the moons of Jupiter.
Michael Ray Taylor, a fellow of the National Speleology Society as well as The Explorers Club, is the author of Hidden Nature, Dark Life, Caves, and other nonfiction books. He has written about science and exploration for The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Houston Chronicle, Wired, NOVA, and many other print and digital publications. He chairs the Communication and Theatre Arts department at Henderson State University in Arkansas. Although a journalist and nature writer, his personal enthusiasm for underground life has led him to collaborate with scientists from NASA and other major research centers in a variety of published scientific articles.
ZOOM MEETING INSTRUCTIONS
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89863009707?pwd=eEhPcExBYWdudjBtZTZVelhVOFVHdz09
Meeting ID: 898 6300 9707
Passcode: 424131
One tap mobile
+13017158592,,89863009707#,,,,*424131# US (Washington DC)
+13126266799,,89863009707#,,,,*424131# US (Chicago)
Dial by your location
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 929 436 2866 US (New York)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
Meeting ID: 898 6300 9707
Passcode: 424131
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdufN6QM45
SAVE THE DATE!
Annual Meeting
Monday, May 23, 2022
Guests are Welcome
Commemorative Air Force Missouri Wing
SMARTT Field
6390 Grafton Ferry Road
Portage des Sioux
St Charles County 63373
4:00 ride in a B-25 or Avenger reservation will be required
5:00 Tour WWll museum
5:30 members meeting announce new board
6:30 dinner & speaker in WWll hangar
Missey Condie & Lotsie Holton, co-chairs annual meeting/dinner
