The samples were successfully recultured in the lab by master's student Krista Williams, '08 BSc. So when the team was back at the field in 2009, it collected samples of the mosses with the aim of seeing if they would regenerate. "We need to allow people to do basic research and curiosity-driven research because that's where we're going to get dynamic new discoveries." - Catherine La Farge In the lab, examination of the blackened specimens showed green lateral branches. The team took samples back south and dated them to the Little Ice Age. "We just assumed that if it came from under the glacier, it would be dead." "But we were not really thinking, 'Should this regrow?'" says La Farge. She saw mosses with a greenish tinge peeking out from under a glacier.
La Farge, director and curator of the Cryptogamic Herbarium in the Department of Biological Sciences, was on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut in 2007 for a project on mosses and other bryophytes, looking at heavy metal pollution in the High Arctic, species variation and diversity. It's another example of the importance of curiosity-driven research, she says. The irony? That wasn't initially the focus of their research. U of A researcher Catherine La Farge, '88 MSc, '97 PhD, garnered rock star status in the botany world this summer.Īfter publishing the findings that seemingly dead moss can regrow after being under a glacier for more than 400 years, La Farge and her team were the focus of news coverage from around the world.
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