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BATESVILLE, Ark.—A biology professor at Lyon College and his students are looking in caves under the Earth’s surface to help decide if life could exist on Mars.

David Thomas, an associate professor at the small, Presbyterian-affiliated school, said his group is researching life at the extremes and applying their finding to early environments on Earth—and off.

Thomas’ group includes Lyon students Melissa Kuehl, Michael McQueen and Lyon College assistant professor of biology Han Ong.

The group has spent many days trudging through dark, damp and often trash and graffiti-littered area caves. They make the trek to collect microbes, which are very small life forms present in things such as bacteria, fungi or algae.The research is funded by NASA and the Arkansas Space Grant Consortium. Thomas was awarded two grants at the end of last year worth a total of $6,000 for the cave bacteria research. He recently received three additional grants to study microbial diversity in Blanchard Springs Caverns. The three grants total $15,294.