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GEOMICROBIOLOGY OF URANIUM DEPOSITS - SURVIVAL UNDER RADIATION STRESS Wolfgang E. Krumbein and Anna A. Gorbushina Geomicrobiology, ICBM, Carl von Ossietzky Universitaet, Oldenburg (Germany) and BIOGEMA (Edewecht, Germany) E-Mail: [email protected] Natural reactors are known for several places in Africa (Gabun events) and other places in Precambrian deposits. Further most Uranium and Radium deposits exhibit plenty traces of extinct lfe forms. This way it can be clearly concluded, that from the early periods of onset of life until today many microorganism types, among which bacteria and fungi predominantly are capable of surviving extremely high doses of radiation. In addition it has been convincingly shown by experiments, that bacteria, cyanobacteria and fungi are capable of enriching radioactive elements to levels of concentrations which may initiate natural nuclear events such as the nuclear reactors of Gabun. The ore deposit of Menzenschwand in the black forest of Germany is loaded with microbial fossils indicating that one of the major pathways of ore enrichment is microbial accumulation of radioactive elements by way of metabolic processes and cell wall catchment of heavy elements. The same has been shown for iridium, platinum and gold. V. I. Vernadsky was one of the fore-runners of ideas concerning radiation biology as also N.V. Timofeev-Ressovsky. In Ukrainia some mycologists have also studied the survival potential of black yeast like fungi after the radioactivity release event of the Tschernobyl reactors. N. N. Lyalikova of the INMI, Moskwa as well as B.D. Dyer of BU, Boston have worked on the enrichment of radioactive elements and of iridium from atomic waste deposits in Russia. From their and our findings we derive, that not only prokaryotes, but also fungi have a high capability of not only surviving high doses of radioactivity but also to enrich radioactive elements in the cell vicinity and hereby helping to create radioactive ore deposits by ways of metabolic activity.