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Distributions of Microbial Activities in Deep Subseafloor Sediments
Steven D'Hondt,1*Bo Barker Jørgensen,1D. Jay Miller,1Anja Batzke,2Ruth Blake,1Barry A. Cragg,1Heribert Cypionka,1Gerald R. Dickens,1Timothy Ferdelman,1Kai-Uwe Hinrichs,1Nils G. Holm,1Richard Mitterer,1Arthur Spivack,1Guizhi Wang,3Barbara Bekins,1Bert Engelen,2Kathryn Ford,1Glen Gettemy,1Scott D. Rutherford,4Henrik Sass,2C. Gregory Skilbeck,1Ivano W. Aiello,1Gilles Guèrin,1Christopher H. House,1Fumio Inagaki,1Patrick Meister,1Thomas Naehr,1Sachiko Niitsuma,1R. John Parkes,1Axel Schippers,1David C. Smith,1Andreas Teske,1Juergen Wiegel,1Christian Naranjo Padilla,1Juana Luz Solis Acosta1
Diverse microbial communities and numerous energy-yielding activitiesoccur in deeply buried sediments of the eastern Pacific Ocean.Distributions of metabolic activities often deviate from thestandard model. Rates of activities, cell concentrations, andpopulations of cultured bacteria vary consistently from onesubseafloor environment to another. Net rates of major activitiesprincipally rely on electron acceptors and electron donors fromthe photosynthetic surface world. At open-ocean sites, nitrateand oxygen are supplied to the deepest sedimentary communitiesthrough the underlying basaltic aquifer. In turn, these sedimentarycommunities may supply dissolved electron donors and nutrientsto the underlying crustal biosphere.
1 Ocean Drilling Program Leg 201 Shipboard Scientific Party. 2 Institut für Chemie und Biologie des Meeres, Universität Oldenburg, D-26111 Oldenburg, Germany. 3 University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography, Narragansett, RI 02882, USA. 4 Department of Environmental Science, Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI 02809, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed at NASA Astrobiology Institute, University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography, South Ferry Road, Narragansett, RI 02882, USA. E-mail: dhondt{at}gso.uri.edu
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