Acknowledgments
The Icelandic Speleological Society (ISS) was indispensable to this
work, with in-depth knowledge of the terrain, and by doing their best to
keep these caves in their pristine states by protecting them from human
contamination by tourists or civilians, which is vital when collecting
samples of microbial mats. Our guides Árni B. Stefánsson, Guðni
Gunnarsson, and Ingólfur Páll Matthíasson were delightful to work with,
and we thank them with the utmost reverence for their professionalism
and for sharing these subterranean natural wonders with our team.
Many thanks to Anett Blischke of the Icelandic GeoSurvey for
constructing the geological map of Iceland in Figure 1.
This work was supported by NWO ALWOP.274 and the University of Akureyri
Research Fund (grant no. R1812).
M.B. acknowledges the support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(DFG – German Research Foundation) for the project “Raman
Biosignatures for Astrobiology Research” (RaBioFAM; project number:
426601242) and of Geo.X, the Research Network for Geosciences in Berlin
and Potsdam, for a travel grant.
B.R.S. is an inventor of patents and patent applications involving small
molecule therapeutics, co-founded and serves as a consultant to Inzen
Therapeutics and Nevrox Limited, and serves as a consultant to
Weatherwax Biotechnologies Corporation and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer &
Feld LLP.