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Distributions of Microbial Activities in Deep Subseafloor Sediments

2004; American Association for the Advancement of Science; Volume: 306; Issue: 5705 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1126/science.1101155

1095-9203

Steven D’Hondt, Bo Barker Jørgensen, D.J. Miller, Anja Batzke, Ruth E. Blake, Barry A. Cragg, Heribert Cypionka, Gerald R. Dickens, Timothy G. Ferdelman, Kai‐Uwe Hinrichs, Nils G. Holm, Richard M. Mitterer, Arthur J. Spivack, Guizhi Wang, B. Bekins, Bert Engelen, Kathryn Ford, Glen L. Gettemy, Scott Rutherford, Henrik Sass, C. Gregory Skilbeck, Ivano W. Aiello, Gilles Guérin, Christopher H. House, Fumio Inagaki, Patrick Meister, Thomas Naehr, Sachiko Niitsuma, R. John Parkes, Axel Schippers, David C. Smith, Andreas Teske, Juergen Wiegel, Christian Naranjo Padilla, Juana Luz Solis Acosta,

Hydrocarbon exploration and reservoir analysis

Diverse microbial communities and numerous energy-yielding activities occur in deeply buried sediments of the eastern Pacific Ocean. Distributions of metabolic activities often deviate from the standard model. Rates of activities, cell concentrations, and populations of cultured bacteria vary consistently from one subseafloor environment to another. Net rates of major activities principally rely on electron acceptors and electron donors from the photosynthetic surface world. At open-ocean sites, nitrate and oxygen are supplied to the deepest sedimentary communities through the underlying basaltic aquifer. In turn, these sedimentary communities may supply dissolved electron donors and nutrients to the underlying crustal biosphere.