Lava Cave Microbe Naming Contest — ʻIolani Community Science

Deep inside the slopes of Kīlauea, unique communities of extremophilic bacteria thrive within the inhospitable crevices of caves formed by once flowing lava. This unseen and often uncharacterized biodiversity may hold new compounds of antibiotic or pharmaceutical interest, or reveal ways in which early life on Earth found purchase in a primordial world. Banner image credit: Kenneth Ingram Biofilms inside a Hawaiʻi Island lava cave. Photo credit: Jimmy Saw Moanalua High School students prepare to sequence a genome using the ʻĀina-Informatics mobile lab. Photo credit: ʻIolani School Across Hawaiʻi Island, lava caves have also served as important cultural landscapes that throughout history have offered shelter, fresh water, refuge from conflict and sacred protection for ʻiwi kupuna. A dazzling array of microbes inhabit these caves, some able to survive off just the lava rock itself, converting the very pele into the ʻāina momona which sustains us all. Wāhine preparing wauke and pounding k

Deep inside the slopes of Kīlauea, unique communities of extremophilic bacteria thrive within the inhospitable crevices of caves formed by once flowing lava. This unseen and often uncharacterized biodiversity may hold new compounds of antibiotic or pharmaceutical interest, or reveal ways in which early life on Earth found purchase in a primordial world. Banner image credit: Kenneth Ingram Biofilms inside a Hawaiʻi Island lava cave. Photo credit: Jimmy Saw Moanalua High School students prepare to sequence a genome using the ʻĀina-Informatics mobile lab. Photo credit: ʻIolani School Across Hawai