Super-habitats

From: Darren
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Re: Super-habitats

"A friend was telling me about research into a group of bugs that extract "metal from ore, they eat rock and poop copper/gold/ iron/etc.

Generally, this involves naturally occuring microbes that metabolize sulfur. They free metals locked in sulfate minerals. (There are some organisms that can work with oxide minerals, but these appear rarer.)

Bio leaching has been around for a while. For 20 or more years we have been using microbes to commercially treat large mounds of low grade ore. The ore is taken from a conventional concentrator, with highest metal bearing minerals removed. The lower content is set out on large leach pads and processed by the bugs.

Potentially, these microbes could be used in the reverse manner: there presence as indicators of nearby metallic orebodies.