The overall goal of the METHANICE project is to better understand the dark winter methane emissions from sub-permafrost groundwater seeps around Svalbard and identify the role of methanotrophs in these extreme environments.

Our work will be broken into several phases to better understand this pingo ice-blister ecosystem and methanotroph community function.

In situ monitoring of ice geochemistry to identify shifts in microbial community due to ice formation
Field measurements of surface methane and carbon dioxide fluxes
Lab analysis of ice and fluid geochemistry
Genomic analysis of ice core microbial communities

Evaluate ability of microbial community to use ice-trapped greenhouse gasses
Micro ice cube (MIC) incubation experiments to explore how the ice blister microbial community uses methane and terminal electron acceptors (TEAs)
Field ice core experiment evaluating if the ice microbe community is more influenced by the sub-ice reservoir or compounds that are trapped within the ice during formation

Furthers understanding of polar methane budgets, and the potential implications of climate change on these ice blister environments
Establishes micro ice cube experiment method, creating potential for other site applications
Develops sampling techniques that can be implemented on upcoming missions exploring our solar system’s icy moons, eg. NASA’s lander expedition to Jupiter’s Europa