Kurt O. Konhauser – författare

2012 PROSE Award, Earth Science: Honorable Mention For more than fifty years scientists have been concerned with the interrelationships of Earth and life. Over the past decade, however, geobiology, the name given to this interdisciplinary endeavour, has emerged as an exciting and rapidly expanding field, fuelled by advances in molecular phylogeny, a new microbial ecology made possible by the molecular revolution, increasingly sophisticated new techniques for imaging and determining chemical compositions of solids on nanometer scales, the development of non-traditional stable isotope analyses, Earth systems science and Earth system history, and accelerating exploration of other planets within and beyond our solar system. Geobiology has many faces: there is the microbial weathering of minerals, bacterial and skeletal biomineralization, the roles of autotrophic and heterotrophic metabolisms in elemental cycling, the redox history in the oceans and its relationship to evolution and the origin of life itself..This book is the first to set out a coherent set of principles that underpin geobiology, and will act as a foundational text that will speed the dissemination of those principles. The chapters have been carefully chosen to provide intellectually rich but concise summaries of key topics, and each has been written by one or more of the leading scientists in that field..Fundamentals of Geobiology is aimed at advanced undergraduates and graduates in the Earth and biological sciences, and to the growing number of scientists worldwide who have an interest in this burgeoning new discipline.Additional resources for this book can be found at: http://www.wiley.com/go/knoll/geobiology.

Introduction to Geomicrobiology is a timely and comprehensive overview of how microbial life has affected Earth's environment through time. It shows how the ubiquity of microorganisms, their high chemical reactivity, and their metabolic diversity make them a significant factor controlling the chemical composition of our planet.The following topics are covered: how microorganisms are classified, the physical constraints governing their growth, molecular approaches to studying microbial diversity, and life in extreme environmentsbioenergetics, microbial metabolic capabilities, and major biogeochemical pathwayschemical reactivity of the cell surface, metal sorption, and the microbial role in contaminant mobility and bioremediation/biorecoverymicrobiological mineral formation and fossilizationthe function of microorganisms in mineral dissolution and oxidation, and the industrial and environmental ramifications of these processeselemental cycling in biofilms, formation of microbialites, and sediment diagenesisthe events that led to the emergence of life, evolution of metabolic processes, and the diversification of the biosphere.Artwork from the book is available to instructors at www.blackwellpublishing.com/konhauser.