Yikes, we realize we never posted the 4 March news of the release of the baseline report of the Deep Carbon Observatory. The Press Release, which Jesse helped draft with Terry Collins, provides an excellent summary of the DCO program.
The baseline is the landmark, freely available (open access) volume Carbon in Earth and its 20 individual chapters edited by Robert Hazen, Adrian Jones, and John Baross. Chapters include On the Origins of Deep Hydrocarbons, Nature and Extent of the Deep Biosphere, and The Deep Viriosphere: Assessing the Viral Impact on Microbial Community Dynamics in the Deep Subsurface.
The DCO website provides excellent updates about the program.
We are excited by the progress of the DCO since its founding 1 July 2009 and look forward to many significant discoveries during the coming years. The DCO was initiated with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and Jesse is proud to continue to help foster the program on behalf of Sloan.
The DCO’s early history is recounted here.