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Temperature limits to deep subseafloor life in the Nankai Trough subduction zone

2020; American Association for the Advancement of Science; Volume: 370; Issue: 6521 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1126/science.abd7934

1095-9203

Verena B. Heuer, Fumio Inagaki, Yuki Morono, Yusuke Kubo, Arthur J. Spivack, Bernhard Viehweger, Tina Treude, Felix Beulig, Florence Schubotz, Satoshi Tonai, Stephen A. Bowden, Margaret Cramm, Susann Henkel, Takehiro Hirose, K. Homola, Tatsuhiko Hoshino, Akira Ijiri, Hiroyuki Imachi, Nana Kamiya, Masanori Kaneko, Lorenzo Lagostina, Hayley Manners, H. L. O. McClelland, Kyle Metcalfe, Natsumi Okutsu, Donald Pan, Maija Raudsepp, Justine Sauvage, Man‐Yin Tsang, David T. Wang, E Whitaker, Yuzuru Yamamoto, Kiho Yang, Lena Maeda, Rishi R. Adhikari, Clemens Glombitza, Yohei Hamada, Jens Kallmeyer, Jenny Wendt, Lars Wörmer, Yasuhiro Yamada, Masataka Kinoshita, Kai‐Uwe Hinrichs,

Geology and Paleoclimatology Research

Deep, hot, and more alive than we thought Marine sediments represent a massive microbial ecosystem, but we still do not fully understand what factors shape and limit life underneath the seafloor. Analyzing samples from a subduction zone off the coast of Japan, Heuer et al. found that microbial life, in particular bacterial vegetative cells, decreases as depth and temperature increases down to ∼600 meters below the seafloor, corresponding to temperatures of ∼70°C. Below this limit, endospores are common—a remnant, and a potential reservoir, of bacterial life. Deeper still is a sterile zone, and below 1000 meters is a scalding realm populated by vegetative cells. At such great depths, high concentrations of acetate and sulfate coexist, and there are also signs of hyperthermophilic methanogenesis. These data provide a fascinating window into an extreme and inhospitable environment that nonetheless supports microbial life. Science , this issue p. 1230