What were the years of operation of the mine that a novel group of acidophilic archaea found at?
Archaeal Richmond Mine acidophilic nanoorganisms Archaeal Richmond Mine acidophilic nanoorganisms (ARMAN) were first discovered in an extremely acidic mine located in northern California (Richmond Mine at Iron Mountain) by Brett Baker in Jill Banfield's laboratory at the University of California Berkeley. These novel groups of archaea named ARMAN-1, ARMAN-2 ("Candidatus" Micrarchaeum acidiphilum ARMAN-2 ), and ARMAN-3 were missed by previous PCR-based surveys of the mine community because the ARMANs have several mismatches with commonly used PCR primers for 16S rRNA genes. Baker "et al." detected them in a later study using shotgun sequencing of the community. The three groups were originally thought to represent three unique lineages deeply branched within the Euryarchaeota, a subgroup of the Archaea. However, this has been revised, based on more complete archaeal genomic tree, that they belong to a super phylum named DPANN. The ARMAN groups now comprise deeply divergent phyla named Micrarchaeota and Parvarchaeota. Their 16S rRNA genes differ by as much as 17% between the three groups. Prior to their discovery all of the Archaea shown to be associated with Iron Mountain belonged to the order Thermoplasmatales (e.g., "Ferroplasma acidarmanus").
Hilton Mine The Hilton Mine is a zinc, lead and silver mine in northwestern Queensland, Australia, approximately 22 km north of the Mount Isa Mines. The mineralization is in the same grey dolomitic Urquhart Shale as the Mount Isa Mines deposit and a similar diagenesis is posited. It is one of five "supergiant" zinc, lead and silver mineralized deposits that have been found in the Mount Isa Inlier, six if one counts the high silver deposit at Cannington.