Microbial communities in dark oligotrophic volcanic ice cave ecosystems of Mt. Erebus, Antarctica.

The Earth's crust hosts a subsurface, dark, and oligotrophic biosphere that is poorly understood in terms of the energy supporting its biomass production and impact on food webs at the Earth's surface. Dark oligotrophic volcanic ecosystems (DOVEs) are good environments for investigations of life in the absence of sunlight as they are poor in organics, rich in chemical reactants and well known for chemical exchange with Earth's surface systems. Ice caves near the summit of Mt. Erebus (Antarctica) offer DOVEs in a polar alpine environment that is starved in organics and with oxygenated hydrothermal circulation in highly reducing host rock. We surveyed the microbial communities using PCR, cloning, sequencing and analysis of the small subunit (16S) ribosomal and Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate Carboxylase/Oxygenase (RubisCO) genes in sediment samples from three different caves, two that are completely dark and one that receives snow-filtered sunlight seasonally. The microbial communities in all three caves are composed primarily of Bacteria and fungi; Archaea were not detected. The bacterial communities from these ice caves display low phylogenetic diversity, but with a remarkable diversity of RubisCO genes including new deeply branching Form I clades, implicating the Calvin-Benson-Bassham (CBB) cycle as a pathway of CO2 fixation. The microbial communities in one of the dark caves, Warren Cave, which has a remarkably low phylogenetic diversity, were analyzed in more detail to gain a possible perspective on the energetic basis of the microbial ecosystem in the cave. Atmospheric carbon (CO2 and CO), including from volcanic emissions, likely supplies carbon and/or some of the energy requirements of chemoautotrophic microbial communities in Warren Cave and probably other Mt. Erebus ice caves. Our work casts a first glimpse at Mt. Erebus ice caves as natural laboratories for exploring carbon, energy and nutrient sources in the subsurface biosphere and the nutritional limits on life

Defining the word “seamount”

Author Posting. © Oceanography Society, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 23, 1 (2010): 20-21.The term seamount has been defined many times (e.g., Menard, 1964; Wessel, 2001; Schmidt and Schmincke, 2000; Pitcher et al., 2007; International Hydrographic Organization, 2008; Wessel et al., 2010) but there is no “generally accepted” definition. Instead, most definitions serve the particular needs of a discipline or a specific paper

Vailulu’u Seamount

Author Posting. © Oceanography Society, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 23, 1 (2010): 164-165.Vailulu’u seamount is an active underwater volcano that marks the end of the Samoan hotspot trail

Seamount sciences : quo vadis?

Author Posting. © Oceanography Society, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 23, 1 (2010): 212-213.Seamounts are fascinating natural ocean laboratories that inform us about fundamental planetary and ocean processes, ocean ecology and fisheries, and hazards and metal resources. The more than 100,000 large seamounts are a defining structure of global ocean topography and biogeography, and hundreds of thousands of smaller ones are distributed throughout every ocean on Earth

High-resolution ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar dating of the oldest oceanic basement basalts in the western Pacific basin

We report new ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar ages for the oldest Pacific oceanic floor at Ocean Drilling Program Site 801C in the Pigafetta basin and Site 1149D close to the Izu-Bonin subduction zone in the Nadezhda basin. These ages were determined by applying high-resolution incremental heating experiments (including 15–30 heating steps) to better resolve the primary argon signal from interfering alteration signatures in these low-potassium ocean crust basalts. Combined with previous results from Pringle [1992] for Site 801B and 801C, we arrive at a multistage history for the formation of the Pigafetta ocean crust. The oldest part of the Pacific plate was formed at the spreading ridges at 167.4 ± 1.4/3.4 Ma (n = 2, 2σ internal/absolute error), offering an important calibration point on the Geological Reversal Timescale (GRTS) since it represents the old end of the Mesozoic magnetic anomalies. This mid-ocean ridge basalt sequence, however, is overlain by more tholeiites and alkali basalts that were formed 7.3 ± 1.5 Myr later around 160.1 ± 0.6 Ma (n = 7, 2σ internal error). The older age group is confirmed independently by radiolarian ages ranging from Late Bajocian to Middle Bathonian (167–173 Ma [Bartolini and Larson, 2001]) and by profound differences in the structural characteristics of this basement section [Pockalny and Larson, 2003]. Thin layers comprising hydrothermal deposits separate these sequences, which in addition to the difference in isotopic age show distinct major and trace element compositions. This indicates that key volcanic and hydrothermal activity took place 400–600 km away from the spreading ridges, on the basis of a Jurassic ~66 km/Myr half spreading rate in the Pacific. It remains unclear if these processes were active continuously after the initial formation of the Pacific oceanic crust, but all our observations seem to point to an episodic history. Site 1149D gives another important calibration point on the GRTS of 127.0 ± 1.5/3.6 Ma (n = 1, 2σ internal/absolute error) for anomaly M12 that is slightly younger when compared to current timescale compilations (134.2 ± 2.1 Ma [Gradstein et al., 1995]). This might suggest that the dated basalt from Site 1149D does not represent the age of the ocean crust formed at its ridge axis; it may also be part of the Early Cretaceous intraplate events that have produced dolerite sills in the Pacific crust at Sites 800 and 802 around 114–126 Ma

Submarine Basaltic Glass Colonization by the Heterotrophic Fe(II)-Oxidizing and Siderophore-Producing Deep-Sea Bacterium

Phylogenetically and metabolically diverse bacterial communities have been found in association with submarine basaltic glass surfaces. The driving forces behind basalt colonization are for the most part unknown. It remains ambiguous if basalt provides ecological advantages beyond representing a substrate for surface colonization, such as supplying nutrients and/or energy. Pseudomonas stutzeri VS-10, a metabolically versatile bacterium isolated from Vailulu'u Seamount, was used as a model organism to investigate the physiological responses observed when biofilms are established on basaltic glasses. In Fe-limited heterotrophic media, P. stutzeri VS-10 exhibited elevated growth in the presence of basaltic glass. Diffusion chamber experiments demonstrated that physical attachment or contact of soluble metabolites such as siderophores with the basaltic glass plays a pivotal role in this process. Electrochemical data indicated that P. stutzeri VS-10 is able to use solid substrates (electrodes) as terminal electron donors and acceptors. Siderophore production and heterotrophic Fe(II) oxidation are discussed as potential mechanisms enhancing growth of P. stutzeri VS-10 on glass surfaces. In correlation with that we discuss the possibility that metabolic versatility could represent a common and beneficial physiological trait in marine microbial communities being subject to oligotrophic and rapidly changing deep-sea conditions

Age systematics of two young en echelon Samoan volcanic trails

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems 12 (2011): Q07025, doi:10.1029/2010GC003438.The volcanic origin of the Samoan archipelago can be explained by one of three models, specifically, by a hot spot forming over a mantle plume, by lithospheric extension resulting from complex subduction tectonics in the region, or by a combination of these two processes, either acting sequentially or synchronously. In this paper, we present results of 36 high-resolution 40Ar/39Ar incremental heating age analyses for the initial (submarine) phase of Samoan volcanoes, ranging from 13.2 Ma for the westernmost Samoan seamounts to 0.27 Ma in the eastern Samoan volcanic province. Taken as a whole, our new age data point to a hot spot origin for the shield-building volcanism in the Samoan lineament, whereby seamounts younger than 5 Ma are consistent with a model of constant 7.1 cm/yr plate motion, analogous to GPS measurements for the Pacific Plate in this region. This makes our new 40Ar/39Ar ages of the submarine basalts all older compared to recent absolute plate motion (APM) models by Wessel et al. (2008), which are based on the inversion of twelve independent seamount trails in the Pacific relative to a fixed reference frame of hot spots and which predict faster plate motions of around 9.3 cm/yr in the vicinity of Samoa. The Samoan ages are also older than APM models by Steinberger et al. (2004) taking into account the motion of hot spots in the Pacific alone or globally. The age systematics become more complicated toward the younger end of the Samoan seamount trail, where its morphology bifurcates into two en echelon subtracks, termed the VAI and MALU trends, as they emanate from two eruptive centers at Vailulu'u and Malumalu seamount, respectively. Spaced ∼50 km apart, the VAI and MALU trends have distinct geochemical characters and independent but overlapping linear 40Ar/39Ar age progressions since 1.5 Ma. These phenomena are not unique to Samoa, as they have been observed at the Hawaiian hot spot, and can be attributed to a geochemical zoning in its underlying mantle source or plume. Moreover, the processes allowing for the emergence of two distinct eruptive centers in the Samoan archipelago, the stepped offset of these subtracks, and their slight obliqueness with respect to the overall seamount trail orientation may very well be controlled by local tectonics, stresses, and extension, also causing the rejuvenated volcanism on the main islands of Savai'i, Upolu, and Tutuila since 0.4 Ma.Financial support is provided by NSF‐OCE 0002875 and NSF‐OCE 0351437