Description: Microbial degradation of substrates to terminal products is commonly understood as a unidirectional process. In individual enzymatic reactions, however, reversibility (reverse reaction and product back flux) is common. Hence, it is possible that entire pathways of microbial degradation are associated with back flux from the accumulating product pool through intracellular intermediates into the substrate pool. We investigated carbon and sulfur back flux during the anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) with sulfate, one of the least exergonic microbial catabolic processes known. The involved enzymes must operate not far from the thermodynamic equilibrium. Such an energetic situation is likely to favor product back flux. Indeed, cultures of highly enriched archaeal–bacterial consortia, performing net AOM with unlabeled methane and sulfate, converted label from 14C-bicarbonate and 35S-sulfide to 14C-methane and 35S-sulfate, respectively. Back fluxes reached 5% and 13%, respectively, of the net AOM rate. The existence of catabolic back fluxes in the reverse direction of net reactions has implications for biogeochemical isotope studies. In environments where biochemical processes are close to thermodynamic equilibrium, measured fluxes of labeled substrates to products are not equal to microbial net rates. Detection of a reaction in situ by labeling may not even indicate a net reaction occurring in the direction of label conversion but may reflect the reverse component of a so far unrecognized net reaction. Furthermore, the natural isotopic composition of the substrate and product pool will be determined by both the forward and back flux. This finding may have to be considered in the interpretation of stable isotope records.

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Teske, A., McKay, L. J., Ravelo, A. C., Aiello, I., Mortera, C., Núñez-Useche, F., Canet, C., Chanton, J. P., Brunner, B., Hensen, C., Ramírez, G. A., Sibert, R. J., Turner, T., White, D., Chambers, C. R., Buckley, A., Joye, S. B., Soule, S. A., & Lizarralde, D. Characteristics and evolution of sill-driven off-axis hydrothermalism in Guaymas Basin - the Ringvent site. Scientific Reports, 9(1), (2019): 13847, doi:10.1038/s41598-019-50200-5.

Description: The Guaymas Basin spreading center, at 2000 m depth in the Gulf of California, is overlain by a thick sedimentary cover. Across the basin, localized temperature anomalies, with active methane venting and seep fauna exist in response to magma emplacement into sediments. These sites evolve over thousands of years as magma freezes into doleritic sills and the system cools. Although several cool sites resembling cold seeps have been characterized, the hydrothermally active stage of an off-axis site was lacking good examples. Here, we present a multidisciplinary characterization of Ringvent, an ~1 km wide circular mound where hydrothermal activity persists ~28 km northwest of the spreading center. Ringvent provides a new type of intermediate-stage hydrothermal system where off-axis hydrothermal activity has attenuated since its formation, but remains evident in thermal anomalies, hydrothermal biota coexisting with seep fauna, and porewater biogeochemical signatures indicative of hydrothermal circulation. Due to their broad potential distribution, small size and limited life span, such sites are hard to find and characterize, but they provide critical missing links to understand the complex evolution of hydrothermal systems.

Description: This work was funded by NSF OCE grant 1449604 “Rapid Proposal: Guaymas Basin site survey cruise for IODP proposal 833” to Andreas Teske; NSF C-DEBI grant “Characterizing subseafloor life and environments in Guaymas Basin” to Andreas Teske, Ivano Aiello and Ana Christina Ravelo; and collaborative NSF Biological Oceanography grants 1357238 and 1357360 “Collaborative Research: Microbial carbon cycling and its interaction with sulfur and nitrogen transformations in Guaymas Basin hydrothermal sediments” to Andreas Teske and Samantha B. Joye, respectively. We thank the Alvin and Sentry teams for a stellar performance during Guaymas Basin cruise AT37-06, and the science crew of RV El Puma for their dedication, skill, and “can-do” collaborative spirit during the 2014 Guaymas coring campaign. Sequencing of bacterial and archaeal communities was supported by the Deep Carbon Observatory, and performed at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA.

Description: A late Pleistocene to Holocene submerged and encrusted speleothem exhibits a complex history including a meteoric phase and two marine phases. A combined study using petrography, mineralogy, and inorganic and organic geochemistry, as well as geochronology has shown that phototrophic and heterotrophic biological activity impacted carbonate precipitation during all phases of carbonate accretion. The stalactite formed ca. 30 m below modern sea level at a marginal overhang in the Blue Hole of Lighthouse Reef Atoll. Unlike purely meteoric speleothems, the Belize example consists of a meteoric core, a marine aragonite crust, and a serpulid-micrite-rich outer crust as a result of postglacial flooding of the karst cave. The core of the stalactite has a tufaceous texture, containing algal or microbial remains, and consists entirely of low-magnesium calcite, formed 19.55-10.68 kyr BP. The texture suggests that the stalactite formed at the cave entrance, and, hence, the former cave ceiling had apparently collapsed earlier during the Pleistocene. Oxygen (δ18O) and carbon (δ13C) isotopes across the core suggest a trend towards drier conditions and reduced soil and plant cover after the last glacial maximum. The marine aragonite crust consists of stacked botryoids in which individual crystals up to 700 lm have dark terminations enriched in high-magnesium calcite. This crust accreted from 10.82 to 9.95 kyr BP in warm shallow water during the early Holocene thermal optimum. Carbonate accretion rates were considerable and averaged 125 μm/yr. The crust has a dense, laminated texture on one side and a porous, shrubby texture on the other. The presence of n-C16:1ω5, n-C17:1ω6, and 10Me-C16 fatty acids in the laminated crust suggests that sulfate-reducing bacteria contributed to aragonite formation in an environment that was less open than the formation environment of the porous crust, where these biomarkers are lacking (n-C16:1ω5,n-C17:1ω6) or are less abundant (10Me-C16). Enrichment of 34S and 18O in carbonate-associated sulfate (CAS) relative to seawater sulfate also suggests sulfate reduction during carbonate formation. The greater contribution of heterotrophic processes to aragonite precipitation in the laminated crust is also reflected in δ13C values as low as -1.3%, whereas no such depletion is observed in the aragonite of the porous crust (δ13C values as low as 0.0%). A pronounced isotopic variability and excursions to positive δ13C values as high as +3.5%0 in the inner half of the laminated crust indicate an episodic, local impact of photosynthesis on aragonite precipitation, whereas the lack of such excursions in the porous crust (δ13C values as high as +1.5%0) is again best explained by a more open environment of formation. After a ca. 5 kyr hiatus, from 4.39 kyr BP, a biogenic crust of abundant serpulids and finely crystalline, microbial and detrital carbonate, consisting of high-magnesium calcite and aragonite, accreted on the outer surface of the stalactite. Outermost crust accretion was probably influenced by the inundation of the Lighthouse Reef lagoon that started to shed abundant fine-grained carbonate sediment into the Blue Hole. The stalactite broke off the cave ceiling either before or after the formation of the outermost crust, likely due to seismic movements along the nearby plate boundary. The study demonstrates that like speleothems from the terrestrial realm, submerged stalactites may have had complex histories with great potential as paleoenvironmental archives.

Description: The interplay between sediment deposition patterns, organic matter type and the quantity and quality of reactive mineral phases determines the accumulation, speciation, and isotope composition of pore water and solid phase sulfur constituents in marine sediments. Here, we present the sulfur geochemistry of siliciclastic sediments from two sites along the Argentine continental slope—a system characterized by dynamic deposition and reworking, which result in non-steady state conditions. The two investigated sites have different depositional histories but have in common that reactive iron phases are abundant and that organic matter is refractory—conditions that result in low organoclastic sulfate reduction rates (SRR). Deposition of reworked, isotopically light pyrite and sulfurized organic matter appear to be important contributors to the sulfur inventory, with only minor addition of pyrite from organoclastic sulfate reduction above the sulfate-methane transition (SMT). Pore-water sulfide is limited to a narrow zone at the SMT. The core of that zone is dominated by pyrite accumulation. Iron monosulfide and elemental sulfur accumulate above and below this zone. Iron monosulfide precipitation is driven by the reaction of low amounts of hydrogen sulfide with ferrous iron and is in competition with the oxidation of sulfide by iron (oxyhydr)oxides to form elemental sulfur. The intervals marked by precipitation of intermediate sulfur phases at the margin of the zone with free sulfide are bordered by two distinct peaks in total organic sulfur (TOS). Organic matter sulfurization appears to precede pyrite formation in the iron-dominated margins of the sulfide zone, potentially linked to the presence of polysulfides formed by reaction between dissolved sulfide and elemental sulfur. Thus, SMTs can be hotspots for organic matter sulfurization in sulfide-limited, reactive iron-rich marine sedimentary systems. Furthermore, existence of elemental sulfur and iron monosulfide phases meters below the SMT demonstrates that in sulfide-limited systems metastable sulfur constituents are not readily converted to pyrite but can be buried to deeper sediment depths. Our data show that in non-steady state systems, redox zones do not occur in sequence but can reappear or proceed in inverse sequence throughout the sediment column, causing similar mineral alteration processes to occur at the same time at different sediment depths.

Description: Highlights • Naturally enriched AOM biomass was studied in high-pressure continuous incubation. • We report the first S- and O-isotope fractionation values by sulfate reduction coupled to AOM from culture studies. • There is a tight link between methane concentration and S- and O-isotope fractionation. • S- and O-isotope fractionation values indicate reversibility of energy limited microbial processes. • The wide range of environmental S- and O-isotope signatures can be explained. Abstract Isotope signatures of sulfur compounds are key tools for studying sulfur cycling in the modern environment and throughout earth's history. However, for meaningful interpretations, the isotope effects of the processes involved must be known. Sulfate reduction coupled to the anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM-SR) plays a pivotal role in sedimentary sulfur cycling and is the main process responsible for the consumption of methane in marine sediments − thereby efficiently limiting the escape of this potent greenhouse gas from the seabed to the overlying water column and atmosphere. In contrast to classical dissimilatory sulfate reduction (DSR), where sulfur and oxygen isotope effects have been measured in culture studies and a wide range of isotope effects has been observed, the sulfur and oxygen isotope effects by AOM-SR are unknown. This gap in knowledge severely hampers the interpretation of sulfur cycling in methane-bearing sediments, especially because, unlike DSR which is carried out by a single organism, AOM-SR is presumably catalyzed by consortia of archaea and bacteria that both contribute to the reduction of sulfate to sulfide. We studied sulfur and oxygen isotope effects by AOM-SR at various aqueous methane concentrations from 1.4±0.6 mM1.4±0.6 mM up to 58.8±10.5 mM58.8±10.5 mM in continuous incubation at steady state. Changes in the concentration of methane induced strong changes in sulfur isotope enrichment (View the MathML sourceεS34) and oxygen isotope exchange between water and sulfate relative to sulfate reduction (θOθO), as well as sulfate reduction rates (SRR). Smallest View the MathML sourceεS34 (21.9±1.9‰21.9±1.9‰) and θOθO (0.5±0.20.5±0.2) as well as highest SRR were observed for the highest methane concentration, whereas highest View the MathML sourceεS34 (67.3±26.1‰67.3±26.1‰) and θOθO (2.5±1.52.5±1.5) and lowest SRR were reached at low methane concentration. Our results show that View the MathML sourceεS34, θOθO and SRR during AOM-SR are very sensitive to methane concentration and thus also correlate with energy yield. In sulfate–methane transition zones, AOM-SR is likely to induce very large sulfur isotope fractionation between sulfate and sulfide (i.e. 〉60‰〉60‰) and will drive the oxygen isotope composition of sulfate towards the sulfate–water oxygen isotope equilibrium value. Sulfur isotope fractionation by AOM-SR at gas seeps, where methane fluxes are high, will be much smaller (i.e. 20 to 40‰).

Description: Collectively, marine sediments comprise the largest reservoir of methane on Earth. The flux of methane from the sea bed to the overlying water column is mitigated by the sulphate-dependent anaerobic oxidation of methane by marine microbes within a discrete sedimentary horizon termed the sulphate–methane transition zone. According to conventional isotope systematics, the biological consumption of methane leaves a residue of methane enriched in 13C (refs 1, 2, 3). However, in many instances the methane within sulphate–methane transition zones is depleted in 13C, consistent with the production of methane, and interpreted as evidence for the intertwined anaerobic oxidation and production of methane4, 5, 6. Here, we report results from experiments in which we incubated cultures of microbial methane consumers with methane and low levels of sulphate, and monitored the stable isotope composition of the methane and dissolved inorganic carbon pools over time. Residual methane became progressively enriched in 13C at sulphate concentrations above 0.5 mM, and progressively depleted in 13C below this threshold. We attribute the shift to 13C depletion during the anaerobic oxidation of methane at low sulphate concentrations to the microbially mediated carbon isotope equilibration between methane and carbon dioxide. We suggest that this isotopic effect could help to explain the 13C-depletion of methane in subseafloor sulphate–methane transition zones.

Description: The Guaymas Basin spreading center, at 2000 m depth in the Gulf of California, is overlain by a thick sedimentary cover. Across the basin, localized temperature anomalies, with active methane venting and seep fauna exist in response to magma emplacement into sediments. These sites evolve over thousands of years as magma freezes into doleritic sills and the system cools. Although several cool sites resembling cold seeps have been characterized, the hydrothermally active stage of an off-axis site was lacking good examples. Here, we present a multidisciplinary characterization of Ringvent, an ~1 km wide circular mound where hydrothermal activity persists ~28 km northwest of the spreading center. Ringvent provides a new type of intermediate-stage hydrothermal system where off-axis hydrothermal activity has attenuated since its formation, but remains evident in thermal anomalies, hydrothermal biota coexisting with seep fauna, and porewater biogeochemical signatures indicative of hydrothermal circulation. Due to their broad potential distribution, small size and limited life span, such sites are hard to find and characterize, but they provide critical missing links to understand the complex evolution of hydrothermal systems.

Description: Purpose MRI of tissues with short coherence lifetimes T 2 or can be performed efficiently using zero echo time (ZTE) techniques such as algebraic ZTE, pointwise encoding time reduction with radial acquisition (PETRA), and water- and fat-suppressed proton projection MRI (WASPI). They share the principal challenge of recovering data in central k-space missed due to an initial radiofrequency dead time. The purpose of this study was to compare the three techniques directly, with a particular focus on their behavior in the presence of ultra–short-lived spins. Methods The most direct comparison was enabled by aligning acquisition and reconstruction strategies of the three techniques. Image quality and short- performance were investigated using point spread functions, 3D simulations, and imaging of phantom and bone samples with short (〈1 ms) and ultra-short (〈100 μs) . Results Algebraic ZTE offers favorable properties but is limited to k-space gaps up to approximately three Nyquist dwells. At larger gaps, PETRA enables robust imaging with little compromise in image quality, whereas WASPI may be prone to artifacts from ultra-short species. Conclusion For small k-space gaps (〈4 dwells) and much larger than the dead time, all techniques enable artifact-free short- MRI. However, if these requirements are not fulfilled careful consideration is needed and PETRA will generally achieve better image quality. Magn Reson Med, 2017. © 2017 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.