Diana Northup

Last updated
Diana Eleanor Northup
Alma mater University of New Mexico
West Virginia University
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of New Mexico
Thesis Geomicrobiology of caves  (2002)

Diana E. Northup is an American microbiologist, speleologist, ecologist, Visiting Professor of Biology, and Professor Emerita of Library Sciences with the University of New Mexico. Her research focuses on the microbial ecology of caves around the world. Dr. Northup is a Fellow of the National Speleological Society and the Cave Research Foundation. She wrote the Wiley textbook Microbial Ecology. [1] [ page needed ] She was awarded the National Speleological Society Science Prize in 2013. [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Northup was an undergraduate student at West Virginia University, where she studied political science. She moved to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for graduate studies, where she earned a Master's of Library Science in 1972. Northup moved to the University of New Mexico, where she earned a Master's degree in biology in 1988. She remained at the University of New Mexico for her doctoral research, where she studied the geomicrobiology of caves. [3] [ page needed ]

Research and career

Northup joined the faculty at the University of New Mexico. At the UNM she started the Subsurface Life In Mineral Environments (SLIME) team. [4] In particular, Northup studies the colourful ferromanganese deposits that line the walls of Lechuguilla and Spider Cave in Carlsbad Caverns National Park. [5] Her work on the Lechuguilla Cave was featured in a PBS Nova episode, "The Mysterious Life of Caves." [5] [6] She is also interested in the hydrogen sulphide cave ('Cueva de las Sardinas') in Tabasco. [7] [ unreliable source? ]

Northup was elected Fellow of the National Speleological Society in 1992, and awarded their Science Prize in 2013. [2] [8]

Selected publications

Books

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lechuguilla Cave</span> Cave in Eddy County, New Mexico, U.S.

At 150.4 miles (242.0 km), Lechuguilla Cave is the eighth-longest explored cave in the world and the second deepest in the continental United States. It is most famous for its unusual geology, rare formations, and pristine condition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Snottite</span>

Snottite, also snoticle, is a microbial mat of single-celled extremophilic bacteria which hang from the walls and ceilings of caves and are similar to small stalactites, but have the consistency of nasal mucus. In the Frasassi Caves in Italy, over 70% of cells in Snottite have been identified as Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans, with smaller populations including an archaeon in the uncultivated 'G-plasma' clade of Thermoplasmatales (>15%) and a bacterium in the Acidimicrobiaceae family (>5%).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microbial ecology</span> Study of the relationship of microorganisms with their environment

Microbial ecology is the ecology of microorganisms: their relationship with one another and with their environment. It concerns the three major domains of life—Eukaryota, Archaea, and Bacteria—as well as viruses.

Sistema Ox Bel Ha is a cave system in Quintana Roo, Mexico. It is the longest explored underwater cave in the world and ranks second including dry caves. As of January 2023 the surveyed length is 435.8 kilometers (270.8 mi) of underwater passages. There are more than 150 cenotes in the system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carlton M. Caves</span> American physicist

Carlton Morris Caves is an American theoretical physicist. He is currently Professor Emeritus and Research Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of New Mexico. Caves works in the areas of physics of information; information, entropy, and complexity; quantum information theory; quantum chaos, quantum optics; the theory of non-classical light; the theory of quantum noise; and the quantum theory of measurement. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Hazel A. Barton is an English born microbiologist, geologist and cave diving explorer, interested in extremophile microorganisms. She is a Professor and Director of the Integrated Bioscience Program at the University of Akron and has appeared in several documentaries.

Penelope J. Boston is a speleologist. She is associate director of the National Cave and Karst Research Institute in Carlsbad, New Mexico, and founder and director of the Cave and Karst Studies Program at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro. Among her research interests are geomicrobiology of caves and mines, extraterrestrial speleogenesis, and space exploration and astrobiology generally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antje Boetius</span> German biologist (born 1967)

Antje Boetius is a German marine biologist. She is a professor of geomicrobiology at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, University of Bremen. Boetius received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize in March 2009 for her study of sea bed microorganisms that affect the global climate. She is also the director of Germany's polar research hub, the Alfred Wegener Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wittenberg University Speleological Society</span>

The Wittenberg University Speleological Society (WUSS) is a student-run grotto of the National Speleological Society (NSS) created in 1980, dedicated to the advancement of speleology. WUSS has more than 500 members, current and past students, faculty and staff of Wittenberg University, as well as community members dedicated to the scientific study, exploration, and preservation of caves and karst environments. The organization is based out of Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cristina Takacs-Vesbach</span> American microbial ecologist

Cristina Takacs-Vesbach is an American microbial ecologist conducting research on the productivity, diversity, and function of microbial communities living at the two extremes of temperature found on Earth-Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys and Yellowstone National Park's thermal springs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tears of the Turtle Cave</span>

Tears of the Turtle Cave is located in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in western Montana and is currently the deepest known limestone cave in the United States since passing New Mexico's Lechuguilla cave in 2014. As of August 2022, the cave is known to be 2,052 feet (625 m) deep and 1.488 miles (2,395 m) long. The cave consists mostly of narrow fissure passage passing over approximately 50 short rope drops. With a mean temperature of 37 °F (3 °C) it is muddy and poorly decorated.

Mars habitability analogue environments on Earth are environments that share potentially relevant astrobiological conditions with Mars. These include sites that are analogues of potential subsurface habitats, and deep subsurface habitats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matt Covington</span> American speleologist

Matthew D. Covington is an American speleologist, most known for his work in hydrogeology and geomorphology, especially in the field of mathematical modeling of karst systems, as well as by his contribution to Cueva Chevé project in Mexico, since 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nora Noffke</span> American geobiologist

Nora Noffke is an American geologist who is a professor in the Department of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, USA. Noffke's research focuses on the sedimentology of biofilm forming sedimentary structures in modern aquatic environments, where clastic deposits dominate. Such structures occur in the fossil record as well. Her studies are interdisciplinary combining sedimentology with microbiology, geochemistry, and mineralogy.

Patricia Kambesis is an American caver, cartographer and educator.

Annette Summers Engel is an American earth scientist who is Donald and Florence Jones Professor of Aqueous Geochemistry at the University of Tennessee. Her research considers how microbes interact with rocks and minerals. She was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2019.

Kathleen Hoey Lavoie was an American microbiologist and explorer who was Professor of Biological Sciences at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. Lavoie was a Fellow of the National Speleological Society and the Cave Research Foundation. She was a specialist in biospeleology, and, in particular, the Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura J. Crossey</span> American hydrologist and geochemist

Laura J. Crossey is an American hydrologist and geochemist and Distinguished Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of New Mexico (UNM). Crossey is part of UNM's Sustainable Water Resources Grand Challenge team, which studies water and climate in New Mexico and other arid regions. She has studied springs and groundwater in areas including the Western Desert of Egypt, Australia's Great Artesian Basin, Tibet, the Middle Rio Grande Basin and the Grand Canyon.

References

  1. Barton, Larry (2011). Microbial ecology. Diana E. Northrup. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN   978-1-118-01582-7. OCLC   757394257.
  2. 1 2 "NSS Science Awardees". caves.org. Retrieved 2021-07-09.
  3. Northup, Diana E (2002). Geomicrobiology of caves (Thesis). OCLC   51209753.
  4. "SLIME Team People". www.caveslime.org. Retrieved 2021-07-09.
  5. 1 2 "The Explorers Club -". explorers.org. Retrieved 2021-07-09.
  6. "Diana Northup on Nova". biology.unm.edu. Retrieved 2021-07-09.
  7. "Diana Northup". extraordinarywls.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2021-07-09.
  8. "NSS Fellows Awardees". caves.org. Retrieved 2021-07-09.