This summer, I have had the opportunity to introduce the speakers at a series of modern Chautauquas put on by the Burgess Shale Geoscience Foundation. These events are part of the “100 years of Discovery” celebrating the finding of the world’s most important animal fossils by George Doolittle Walcott in 1909. I was intrigued by this opportunity as I remembered the term Chautauqua from watching a show on TV many years ago called Chautauqua Girl. I have since learned that a Chautauqua is an informal education gathering of people and an exchange of ideas. A Chautauqua is considered an inspirational gathering for lifelong learning.

Mathew Fay, PhD candidate in geology from the University of Calgary, presented his thesis research on “Fluid Geochemistry in the Western Canada Foreland Basin and Paleoclimate Influence”. In his discussion, Matt explained how through plate tectonics and the building of mountains, water has been trapped underground for many thousands of years. Due to the alignment of the deeply buried strata, and additionally the pressure and porosity of the various levels, the water and the hydrocarbons move considerable distances over the eons of time involved. Additionally, the presence of water and hydrocarbons at depth also leads to a fertile ground for biota in the form of microbes as yet unknown and unstudied. Much future work by Mathew and others will lead to further elucidation of the role of these deeply buried microorganisms.

The first Chautauqua was held in New York in 1874. They continued as important cultural events across the Canadian prairies and the American Midwest well into the 1920s. Coincidentally, it was during the 1870s that early microbiologists like Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch and Ferdinand Cohn realized that to understand microbiology they would need to be able to study pure cultures (i.e., a microbial culture containing only one kind of bacteria). There is a quote from pure culture advocates of that time, Anton de Bary and Oscar Brefeld stating “if one doesn’t work with pure cultures, only nonsense and Penicillium glaucum can come out of it.” However, it was not until 1878 that English scientist Joseph Lister developed a dilution procedure which allowed the isolation of a pure culture of lactic fermenting bacteria. Shortly after that an assistant of Koch, Julius Richard Petri, developed a special dish containing an agar to be used isolating pure colonies. It has been used almost unmodified since. Even now, students of microbiology learn early in their lab work how to isolate and culture bacteria for study using streak plating on Petri dishes.

Some microorganisms still defy our ability to isolate and study them as pure cultures. The microbes I mentioned above that live in the rocks thousands of metres underground interacting between the ancient waters, the locked up hydrocarbons, the minerals in the rocks certainly challenge any known way to study them as pure cultures. Yet, I learned from a discussion with Genome Alberta CSO: Gijs van Rooijen that the recently developed technique of metagenomics reveals a great deal of information even in the absence of pure cultures. A simplified analogy for metagenomics might be if one thinks of putting a bunch of toy building blocks into a bag. You could feel the outside of the bag and determine that there are structures inside, but you cannot really see them. Reaching into the bag, you could slip the building blocks apart and take the components out of the bag. Now outside the bag, you could try and reassemble the parts into structures. You will see the new structures outside. They may be the same or they may be different. It doesn’t really matter at this stage since you can study the component parts and determine if there are useful bits. Yes, this is a gross oversimplification of a complex science, but it is great for understanding the principles.

One of the new initiatives of Genome Alberta involves the study of metagenomics with regard to the oilsands. This project headed up by Dr. Gerrit Voordouw of the University of Calgary has a budget of well over $11 million. This important project is designed to minimize the environmental impact of oil sands production, by decreasing its use of water and emission of greenhouse gases and by enhancing the extraction of clean burning gas from coal beds. The initial phase will be the development of a database to describe and harness the genetic potential of the microorganisms, genes and biological processes that exist naturally in microbial communities in our oilsands and coal beds. The publicly accessible knowledge generated by this project will also help other researchers harness the power of the processes present in Canada’s deep biosphere to resolve other important research questions.

I will blog more on this fascinating topic as I hear results from this project and other studies. There is still so much to learn about life on earth past and present. We all can fulfill the mandate for lifelong learning whether through old style Chautauquas, or following topics on the latest social media like Genome Alberta blogs, Genome Alberta Facebook page or Twitter,