生物地球物理学的产生与研究进展

The Earth is the only planet in our solar system that supports life. The biosphere of the Earth has extensive interactions with and plays a key role in shaping other geosystems. For example, microorganisms have been involved with numerous changes of the physical/ chemical nature of the Earths topmost lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere since the early stages of the Earths evolution. In the past decade, geophysical methods have been widely applied to probe subsurface microbial cells, microbial mediated alteration of petrophysical properties, etc. This progress has now developed into an interdisciplinary branch of biogeosciences, i.e., biogeophysics. In this paper we first briefly introduce the establishment of biogeophysics as a new discipline, and then review biogeophysical research progress in subsurface microbial alteration (e.g., microbe-mineral interactions). We then focus on recent progress in bio-geomagnetism, a cross-discipline study of geomagnetism and biology, including geomagnetic navigation and the study of magnetotactic bacteria and magnetosomes, mostly conducted by our group. We will then discuss the application of biogeophysics to global climate change. Finally, we summarize some problems, challenges and prospective lines of research for this new field. The growing discipline of biogeophysics not only opens new avenues of research for geophysics, but it also holds promise for deepening our understanding of surface processes on the Earth.