Introduction to the Pavilion Lake Research Project
Read the News from the PLRP project leads and view the public calendar.
The Pavilion Lake Research Project (PLRP) is an international, multi-disciplinary, science and exploration effort to explain the origin of freshwater microbialites in Pavilion Lake, British Columbia, Canada. Fossil microbialites represent some of the earliest remnants of life on ancient Earth, and were common from ~2.5 billion to 540 million years ago. Today, microbialites are found in environments where conditions are often too harsh for most organisms. However, the microbialites in Pavilion Lake have provided a new environment for the scientific community to study that demonstrates that large, and uniquely shaped structures can also occur in non-extreme environments that also support fish, plants and other species. The microbialites of Pavilion Lake are relevant to our understanding of ancient microbialites that were once common and diverse on early Earth, as such, Pavilion Lake has become an exciting field site for Earth scientists and astrobiologists who are interested in the application of the PLRP research to the search for life in our solar system and beyond. The project began in 2004, and has grown in exciting new directions ever since. Thank you for your interest!
Dr. Darlene Lim, PLRP's Principal Investigator, discusses the Pavilion Lake Research Project, the unique elements of Pavilion Lake and it's relationship to space exploration.
Funding and support provided by:
PLRP is funded by the CSA CARN program and NASA MMAMA program. Additional funding provided by NASA ESMD Analogs, NASA ASTEP and Nuytco Research. Previous support for the program has also been received from the NASA Spaceward Bound Program, the National Geographic Society, and McMaster University.
Recent Blog Posts
Allyson and Bekah Arrive at the ISRU Field Site
by Bekah Shepard on February 3rd, 2010
Ahhhh, Hawaii. The Big Island. Palm trees, tropical ocean, coconuts, yummy coffee – you can’t beat a tropical field destination! Of course, when Allyson and I arrived at the site, this is what we saw… Where are all the beaches and palm trees! Can you guess where we are on [...]
PLRP Meets ISRU
by Bekah Shepard on January 31st, 2010
Aloha! That’s right – PLRP is visiting Hawaii! To be more specific, Allyson and myself have journeyed to the Big Island to take part in another exploration analogue test – the In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) Test. ISRU is just a fancy way of saying “using the [...]