Martin Fisk

YouTube Lectures

1. Abiogenesis at Basalt-Water Boundaries: A Hypothesis
   16 minutes
   Presented at Astrobiology Science Conference, July 11, 2019 
2. Curiosity on Mars: NASA's search for habitable environments
   39 minutes
   Presented at Da Vinci Days, July 20,2013

Current Activity 2025

1. Contributor to the Life Detection Knowledge Base a community with the goal of identifying biosignatures that can be used to detect life beyond Earth.
   Coauthor of the paper Shkolyar S, Bebout L, Blank JG, Cady SL, Cavalazzi B, Corbin E, Davila AF, Des Marais D, Fisk M, Hickman-Lewis K, Lima-Zaloumis J, McLoughlin N, Murphy AE, Noffke N, Perl SM, Pohorille A, Potter-McIntyre SL, Rainwater JH, Westall F. Structural Biosignatures-A Category of Potential Biosignatures in the Life Detection Knowledge Base. Astrobiology. 2025 Jul;25(7):482-497. doi: 10.1089/ast.2024.0105. Epub 2025 Jul 8. PMID: 40626858.
2. Transient liquid water on the surface of Mars. 
   "Potential geomorphological signatures of sites of transient liquid water and methane emissions in Gale Crater, Mars" David Horne and Martin Fisk.
   Presentation at Cryomars Conference, Leicester England 2025.

Research

Decorated Vesicles in Deep-Sea Basalts. 2025-6. Ocean Drilling Program, Novel Studies.
With Radu Popa and Vasile Gherman
Synopsis: Bubbles, called vesicles, are ubiquitous in deep-sea basalts. They contain sulfide minerals like those that catalyze the formation of the organic building blocks of life from hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Few analyses of these minerals exist, and we propose to determine their composition in basalts from several volcanic environments.

Research Interests

• Origin of life.
• Habitability of Mars.
• Microbes in volcanic rocks on Earth.
• Volcanic processes on mid-ocean ridges and ocean islands.
• The Ocean Drilling Program.

Education

• B.S., University of Vermont (Physics), 1969
• Ph.D., University of Rhode Island (Oceanography), 1978

Most Recent Teaching

GEO 331 Astrobiology: Life Beyond Earth. Co-taught with Rick Colwell from 2010 to 2023. The course examined the question, 'Is there life elsewhere in the solar system, galaxy, and universe?'

Honors

Fulbright Scholar, Center for Geobiology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway 2012.

Recent and Significant Publications

(Please email me for copies.)

Fisk, M.R., Popa R. 2023 Decorated Vesicles as Prebiont Systems (a Hypothesis), Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres

Fisk, M.R., Popa, R., Wacey, D. 2019 Tunnel formation in basalt glass, Astrobiology 19:132-144. doi: 10.1089/ast.2017.1791.

Fisk, M.R and McLoughlin, N. 2013 Atlas of alteration textures in volcanic glass from the ocean basins, Geosphere, v. 9 p. 317-341. doi: 10.1130/GES00827.1

Fisk, M. R., and Giovannoni, S. J., 1999 Sources of nutrients and energy for a deep biosphere on Mars. J. Geophys. Res. 104: 11805-11815. doi: 10.1029/1999JE900010

Fisk, M.R., Giovannoni, S.J., and Thorseth, I.H., 1998 Alteration of oceanic volcanic glass: textural evidence of microbial activity. Science 281, 978-980. doi: 10.1126/science.281.5379.978