National Cave and Karst Research Institute

Carlsbad, New Mexico | Conduct, support, facilitate, and promote programs in cave and karst research, education, environmental management, and data acquisition and sharing.

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Dr. Daniel S. Jones

Dr. Dan Jones

Dan fell in love with cave science as an undergraduate when he had his first chance to visit the Frasassi Caves. The Frasassi Caves are a spectacular limestone cave system in central Italy that are renowned not only for their beauty but also because they harbor a secret: the caves were formed by microorganisms! Much in the same way we humans eat sugar and breathe oxygen, there are microorganisms that survive by “eating” and “breathing” inorganic chemicals. The Frasassi Caves are filled with microorganisms that “eat” hydrogen sulfide and produce sulfuric acid. Over time, this strong acid has eaten away the cave limestone and hollowed out the spectacular caverns that make Frasassi. Dan was captivated. 

Many years later, Dan now leads a research group in the Earth and Environmental Science Department at New Mexico Tech. Dan (or Dr. Jones if you prefer) and his students study many different aspects of cave and karst science, and some of their most exciting work is on the microbiological processes that form caves. Through their research, Dan and his colleagues have shown where and when sulfuric acid is produced in “sulfidic” caves like Frasassi, and they have discovered some of the bacteria and other microorganisms that are responsible. Some of his students are even growing bacteria that can survive at pH 0—extremely acidic conditions, almost like battery acid.

Dan and his students explore a variety of scientific questions when they go underground. They investigate whether microorganisms adapt to cave conditions, and how they evolve in underground isolation. They ask whether there are new forms of life in extreme underground environments, and are currently growing bacteria and archaea (another form of microbial life) that represent new branches on the tree of life. They are even looking for signatures of microbial life in cave mineral deposits that are analogs for where we might find life on other planets.

Prior to his position at New Mexico Tech and NCKRI, Dan was the program coordinator for the MnDRIVE Environment initiative at the University of Minnesota and was a research associate at the University of Minnesota BioTechnology Institute. He remains affiliate graduate faculty in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Minnesota. In addition to his work on caves and karst, Dan has multiple research interests in the fields of environmental microbiology and geochemistry, and he has studied microbiological processes in mine drainage, deep marine sediments, and wetland ecosystems. His international research is widely published and cited.

Education

Ph.D., Geosciences, and Biogeochemistry, The Pennsylvania State University 2011
Bachelor of Science, Geology, Carleton College 2006

Selected Recent Publications

Jones DS, Schaperdoth I, Macalady JL (2016). Biogeography of sulfur-oxidizing Acidithiobacillus populations in extremely acidic cave biofilms. ISME J 10: 2879 (doi:10.1038/ismej.2016.74)
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Jones DS, Polerecky L, Dempsey BA, Galdenzi S, Macalady JL (2015). Fate of sulfide in the Frasassi cave system and implications for sulfuric acid speleogenesis, Chem Geol 410: 21 (doi:10.1016/j.gca.2015.10.028)
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Galdenzi S and Jones DS, (2017). The Frasassi Caves: A “classical” active hypogenic cave. In Klimchouk A, Palmer A, Waele JD, Auler A, Audra P (ed), Hypogene Karst Regions and Caves of the World. Springer. (ISBN 978-3-319-53347-6)
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Jones DS, Walker GM, Johnson NJ, Mitchell C.P.J., Coleman Wasik JK, Bailey JV (2019). Molecular evidence for novel mercury methylating microorganisms in sulfate-impacted lakes. The ISME Journal 13: 1659 (doi: 10.1038/s41396-019-0376-1)
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Jones DS, Lapakko KA, Wenz ZJ, Olson MC, Roepke EW, Sadowsky MJ, Novak PJ, Bailey JV (2017). Novel microbial assemblages dominate weathered sulfide-bearing rock from copper-nickel deposits in the Duluth Complex, Minnesota, U.S.A. Appl Environ Microbiol 83:e00909-17 (doi: 10.1128/AEM.00909-17)
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To see Dan’s complete publication record, visit his Google Scholar profile.