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Kolbeinsey Ridge
The Kolbeinsey Ridge is a segment of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge located to the north of Iceland in the Arctic Ocean. It is bounded to the south by the Tjörnes Fracture Zone, which connects the submarine ridge to the on-shore Northern Volcanic Zone rifting center in eastern Iceland. The volcanic islands Kolbeinsey and Grímsey lie along the Kolbeinsey Ridge. In 1992, Robert Huber and Karl Stetter discovered a new species of thermophilic bacteria here and named it '' A. pyrophilus''. See also * Aegir Ridge The Aegir Ridge is an extinct segment of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the far-northern Atlantic Ocean. It marks the initial break-up boundary between Greenland and Norway, along which seafloor spreading was initiated at the beginning of the Eocene ep ... References Mid-Atlantic Ridge Underwater ridges of the Atlantic Ocean {{Tectonics-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mid-Atlantic Ridge
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a mid-ocean ridge (a divergent or constructive plate boundary) located along the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, and part of the longest mountain range in the world. In the North Atlantic, the ridge separates the North American from the Eurasian Plate and the African Plate, north and south of the Azores Triple Junction respectively. In the South Atlantic, it separates the African and South American plates. The ridge extends from a junction with the Gakkel Ridge (Mid-Arctic Ridge) northeast of Greenland southward to the Bouvet Triple Junction in the South Atlantic. Although the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is mostly an underwater feature, portions of it have enough elevation to extend above sea level, for example in Iceland. The ridge has an average spreading rate of about per year. Discovery A ridge under the northern Atlantic Ocean was first inferred by Matthew Fontaine Maury in 1853, based on soundings by the USS ''Dolphin''. The existence of the ridge and its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iceland
Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its surrounding areas) is home to over 65% of the population. Iceland is the biggest part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that rises above sea level, and its central volcanic plateau is erupting almost constantly. The interior consists of a plateau characterised by sand and lava fields, mountains, and glaciers, and many glacial rivers flow to the sea through the lowlands. Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a temperate climate, despite a high latitude just outside the Arctic Circle. Its high latitude and marine influence keep summers chilly, and most of its islands have a polar climate. According to the ancient manuscript , the settlement of Iceland began in 874 AD when the Norwegian chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson became the first p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kolbeinsey
Kolbeinsey (; also known as Kolbeinn's Isle, Seagull Rock, Mevenklint, Mevenklip, or Meeuw Steen) is a small islet in the Greenland Sea located off the northern coast of Iceland, north-northwest of the island of Grímsey. It is the northernmost point of Iceland and lies north of the Arctic Circle. The islet is named after Kolbeinn Sigmundsson, from Kolbeinsdalur in Skagafjörður, who according to ''Svarfdæla saga'' is said to have broken his ship there and died with his men. A basalt landform and devoid of vegetation, Kolbeinsey is subject to rapid wave erosion and is expected to disappear in the near future. Erosion rate data from 1994 suggested that this would happen around 2020. , two small skerries remained visible at low tide. History The original size of Kolbeinsey is unknown. When it was first measured in 1616, the island was in length from north to south and east to west. By 1903, it had already diminished to half of that size. In August 1985, the island was rec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grímsey
Grímsey () is a small Icelandic island, off the north coast of the main island of Iceland, straddling the Arctic Circle. In January 2018 Grímsey had 61 inhabitants. Before 2009, Grimsey constituted the ''hreppur'' (municipality) of Grímseyjarhreppur . In that year, island residents voted to join the municipality with Akureyri. The island's only settlement is Sandvík. Geography Grímsey is the northernmost inhabited Icelandic territory; the rapidly disappearing islet of Kolbeinsey lies some farther north, but is uninhabitable. The closest land is the island of Flatey, Skjálfandi, to the south. The Arctic Circle currently runs through the island, a feature of interest to many visitors, while the entirety of mainland Iceland lies south of the Arctic Circle. Due to long-term oscillations in the Earth's axis, the Arctic Circle currently Circle of latitude#Movement of the Tropical and Polar circles, shifts northward by about per year, though varying substantially from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Huber
Robert Huber (; born 20 February 1937) is a German biochemist and Nobel laureate. known for his work crystallizing an intramembrane protein important in photosynthesis and subsequently applying X-ray crystallography to elucidate the protein's structure. Education and early life He was born on 20 February 1937 in Munich where his father, Sebastian, was a bank cashier. He was educated at the Humanistisches Karls-Gymnasium from 1947 to 1956 and then studied chemistry at the Technische Hochschule, receiving his diploma in 1960. He stayed, and did research into using crystallography to elucidate the structure of organic compounds. Career In 1971 he became a director at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry where his team developed methods for the crystallography of proteins. In 1988 he received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry jointly with Johann Deisenhofer and Hartmut Michel. The trio were recognized for their work in first crystallizing an intramembrane protein important in ph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karl Stetter
Karl Otto Stetter (born 16 July 1941) is a German microbiologist and authority on astrobiology. He is an expert on microbial life at high temperatures. Career Stetter was born in Munich and studied biology at the Technical University of Munich. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on lactobacilli. From 1980 to 2002 he was professor at, and head of, the department of microbiology and of the Archaea center of the University of Regensburg. The majority of Stetter's research has focused on sampling, isolating and characterizing archaeal organisms which comprise the third domain of life, particularly undiscovered extremely heat-loving (''hyperthermophilic'') bacteria and Archaea, also called extremophiles, growing optimally between 80 and 113 °C. Major discovery In 1992, Stetter, along with Robert Huber, discovered a new species of thermophilic bacteria near Kolbeinsey Ridge and named it '' Aquifex pyrophilous''. '' Nanoarchaeum equitans'', an archaeal microorganism contain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermophile
A thermophile is an organism—a type of extremophile—that thrives at relatively high temperatures, between . Many thermophiles are archaea, though they can be bacteria or fungi. Thermophilic eubacteria are suggested to have been among the earliest bacteria. Thermophiles are found in various geothermally heated regions of the Earth, such as hot springs like those in Yellowstone National Park (see image) and deep sea hydrothermal vents, as well as decaying plant matter, such as peat bogs and compost. Thermophiles can survive at high temperatures, whereas other bacteria or archaea would be damaged and sometimes killed if exposed to the same temperatures. The enzymes in thermophiles function at high temperatures. Some of these enzymes are used in molecular biology, for example the ''Taq'' polymerase used in PCR. "Thermophile" is derived from the el, θερμότητα (''thermotita''), meaning heat, and el, φίλια (''philia''), love. Classification Thermophiles can be c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bacteria
Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among the first life forms to appear on Earth, and are present in most of its habitats. Bacteria inhabit soil, water, acidic hot springs, radioactive waste, and the deep biosphere of Earth's crust. Bacteria are vital in many stages of the nutrient cycle by recycling nutrients such as the fixation of nitrogen from the atmosphere. The nutrient cycle includes the decomposition of dead bodies; bacteria are responsible for the putrefaction stage in this process. In the biological communities surrounding hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, extremophile bacteria provide the nutrients needed to sustain life by converting dissolved compounds, such as hydrogen sulphide and methane, to energy. Bacteria also live in symbiotic and parasitic relationsh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aquifex Pyrophilus
''Aquifex pyrophilus'' is a gram-negative, non-spore forming, rod-shaped bacteria. It is one of a handful of species in the Aquificota phylum, which are a group of thermophilic bacteria that are found near underwater volcanoes or hot springs. Name Meaning ''Aquifex pyrophilus'' has a name that references its respiration and its habitat. The name "Aquifex" means "water-maker" in Latin. The name was assigned to ''A. pyrophilus'' because it typically uses oxygen as its respiration and water as a byproduct. The name "Pyrophilus" can be broken down into "Pyro" and "Philus". "Pyro" is Latin for fire, heat, or high temperature and "Philus" is a Latin word for "loving". Therefore the term "pyrophilus" can be interpreted as "heat loving" which refers to the habitat ''A. pyrophilus'' is typically found in. Habitat The genus Aquifex is a contains some of the most thermophilic bacterium of all known bacteria. ''A. pyrophilus'' is an aquatic microbe that is typically found near underwa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aegir Ridge
The Aegir Ridge is an extinct segment of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the far-northern Atlantic Ocean. It marks the initial break-up boundary between Greenland and Norway, along which seafloor spreading was initiated at the beginning of the Eocene Epoch (geology), epoch to form the northern Atlantic Ocean. Towards the end of the Eocene, the newly forming Kolbeinsey Ridge propagated northwards from Iceland, splitting the Jan Mayen Microcontinent away from the Greenland Plate. As the Kolbeinsey Ridge formed, so activity on the Aegir Ridge reduced, ceasing completely at the end of the Oligocene epoch when the Kolbeinsey Ridge reached the Jan Mayen Fracture Zone. The relatively thin crust and short lifespan of the Aegir Ridge is anomalous given its proximity to the Iceland hotspot. Mantle Hotspot (geology), hotspots deliver warm, actively-upwelling material to mid-ocean ridges, increasing mantle melting and crustal production. Likely, the stresses associated with plate tectonics and the m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
