| microbial communities in subpermafrost saline fracture water at the lupin au mine, nunavut, canada. | we report the first investigation of a deep subpermafrost microbial ecosystem, a terrestrial analog for the martian subsurface. our multidisciplinary team analyzed fracture water collected at 890 and 1,130 m depths beneath a 540-m-thick permafrost layer at the lupin au mine (nunavut, canada). 14c, 3h, and noble gas isotope analyses suggest that the na-ca-cl, suboxic, fracture water represents a mixture of geologically ancient brine, approximately25-kyr-old, meteoric water and a minor modern tali ... | 2009 | 19568805 |