Dataset Information

Novel microbial assemblages inhabiting crustal fluids within mid-ocean ridge flank subsurface basalt.

ABSTRACT: Although little is known regarding microbial life within our planet's rock-hosted deep subseafloor biosphere, boreholes drilled through deep ocean sediment and into the underlying basaltic crust provide invaluable windows of access that have been used previously to document the presence of microorganisms within fluids percolating through the deep ocean crust. In this study, the analysis of 1.7 million small subunit ribosomal RNA genes amplified and sequenced from marine sediment, bottom seawater and basalt-hosted deep subseafloor fluids that span multiple years and locations on the Juan de Fuca Ridge flank was used to quantitatively delineate a subseafloor microbiome comprised of distinct bacteria and archaea. Hot, anoxic crustal fluids tapped by newly installed seafloor sampling observatories at boreholes U1362A and U1362B contained abundant bacterial lineages of phylogenetically unique Nitrospirae, Aminicenantes, Calescamantes and Chloroflexi. Although less abundant, the domain Archaea was dominated by unique, uncultivated lineages of marine benthic group E, the Terrestrial Hot Spring Crenarchaeotic Group, the Bathyarchaeota and relatives of cultivated, sulfate-reducing Archaeoglobi. Consistent with recent geochemical measurements and bioenergetic predictions, the potential importance of methane cycling and sulfate reduction were imprinted within the basalt-hosted deep subseafloor crustal fluid microbial community. This unique window of access to the deep ocean subsurface basement reveals a microbial landscape that exhibits previously undetected spatial heterogeneity.

SUBMITTER: Jungbluth SP

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5029167 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Novel microbial assemblages inhabiting crustal fluids within mid-ocean ridge flank subsurface basalt.

Jungbluth Sean P SP Bowers Robert M RM Lin Huei-Ting HT Cowen James P JP Rappé Michael S MS

The ISME journal 20160212 8

Although little is known regarding microbial life within our planet's rock-hosted deep subseafloor biosphere, boreholes drilled through deep ocean sediment and into the underlying basaltic crust provide invaluable windows of access that have been used previously to document the presence of microorganisms within fluids percolating through the deep ocean crust. In this study, the analysis of 1.7 million small subunit ribosomal RNA genes amplified and sequenced from marine sediment, bottom seawater ...[more]

PMID: 26872042

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Project description:Textures and compositions of minerals can be used to infer the physiochemical conditions present within magmatic systems. Given that plagioclase is an abundant phase in many magmatic systems, understanding the link between texture and process is vital. Here, we present a database of textural and compositional data for?>?1800 plagioclase crystals in mid-ocean ridge basalt from the Gakkel Ridge (Arctic Ocean) to investigate the physiochemical conditions and processes that govern the formation of plagioclase textures and compositions. The Gakkel basalts have high modal crystal contents (up to 50%). The crystal cargo is complex, with both individual plagioclase and glomerocrysts showing large variations in crystal habit, zoning and resorption. The most common types of zoning are reverse and patchy; we attribute patchy zoning to infilling following either skeletal growth or resorption. Resorption is abundant, with multiple resorption events commonly present in a single crystal, and results from both magmatic recharge and decompression. Periods of strong undercooling, distinct to quench crystallisation, are indicated by matured skeletal crystals and thin normally zoned melt inclusion-rich bands following resorption. Individual samples often contain diverse textural and compositional plagioclase groups. Furthermore, most plagioclase is not in equilibrium with its host melt. Finally, the porous open structures of some glomerocrysts suggest that they represent pieces of entrained disaggregated mush. We interpret this to indicate that the crystal cargo is not generally phenocrystic in origin. Instead, plagioclase crystals that formed in different parts of a mush-dominated plumbing system were entrained into ascending melts. The textures of individual crystals are a function of their respective histories of (under)cooling, magma mixing and decompression. The morphologies of melt inclusion trapped in the plagioclase crystals are associated with specific host crystal textures, suggesting a link between plagioclase crystallisation processes and melt inclusion entrapment. The database of plagioclase presented herein may serve as a template for the interpretation of plagioclase textures in magmatic systems elsewhere.

Dataset Information

Novel microbial assemblages inhabiting crustal fluids within mid-ocean ridge flank subsurface basalt.

Publications

Novel microbial assemblages inhabiting crustal fluids within mid-ocean ridge flank subsurface basalt.

Similar Datasets

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