Articles | Volume 16, issue 12
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-2443-2019
© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-2443-2019
© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
19 Jun 2019
Research article |
| 19 Jun 2019
| 19 Jun 2019
Organic signatures in Pleistocene cherts from Lake Magadi (Kenya) – implications for early Earth hydrothermal deposits
Planets and Comets, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research,
37077 Göttingen, Germany
Department of Geobiology, Geoscience Centre, University of
Göttingen, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
Walter Goetz
Planets and Comets, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research,
37077 Göttingen, Germany
Jan-Peter Duda
Department of Earth Sciences, University of California, Riverside, CA
92521, USA
Christine Heim
Department of Geobiology, Geoscience Centre, University of
Göttingen, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
Joachim Reitner
Department of Geobiology, Geoscience Centre, University of
Göttingen, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
Origin of Life Group, Göttingen Academy of Sciences and
Humanities, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
Volker Thiel
Department of Geobiology, Geoscience Centre, University of
Göttingen, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
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Wanli Xiang, Jan-Peter Duda, Andreas Pack, Mark van Zuilen, and Joachim Reitner
Biogeosciences, 21, 5653–5684, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-5653-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-5653-2024, 2024
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We investigated the formation of early Archean (~3.5–3.4 Ga) carbonates in the Pilbara Craton, Western Australia, demonstrating the presence of an oceanic crust, an organo-carbonate, and a microbial carbonate factory. Notably, (a)biotic organic matter and hydrothermal fluids were centrally involved in carbonate precipitation. Since carbonates were widespread in the Archean, they may have constituted major carbon sinks that modulated early Earth’s carbon cycle and, hence, climate system.
Yan Shen, Volker Thiel, Pablo Suarez-Gonzalez, Sebastiaan W. Rampen, and Joachim Reitner
Biogeosciences, 17, 649–666, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-649-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-649-2020, 2020
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Today, sterols are widespread in plants, animals, and fungi but are almost absent in the oldest rocks. Microbial mats, representing the earliest complex ecosystems on Earth, were omnipresent in Precambrian marine environments and may have degraded the sterols at that time. Here we analyze the distribution of sterols through a microbial mat. This provides insight into how variations in biological and nonbiological factors affect the preservation of sterols in modern and ancient microbial mats.
Blanca Rincón-Tomás, Jan-Peter Duda, Luis Somoza, Francisco Javier González, Dominik Schneider, Teresa Medialdea, Esther Santofimia, Enrique López-Pamo, Pedro Madureira, Michael Hoppert, and Joachim Reitner
Biogeosciences, 16, 1607–1627, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-1607-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-1607-2019, 2019
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Cold-water corals were found at active sites in Pompeia Province (Gulf of Cádiz). Since seeped fluids are harmful for the corals, we approached the environmental conditions that allow corals to colonize carbonates while seepage occurs. As a result, we propose that chemosynthetic microorganisms (i.e. sulfide-oxidizing bacteria and AOM-related microorganisms) play an important role in the colonization of the corals at these sites by feeding on the seeped fluids and avoiding coral damage.
Beate Stawiarski, Stefan Otto, Volker Thiel, Ulf Gräwe, Natalie Loick-Wilde, Anna K. Wittenborn, Stefan Schloemer, Janine Wäge, Gregor Rehder, Matthias Labrenz, Norbert Wasmund, and Oliver Schmale
Biogeosciences, 16, 1–16, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-1-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-1-2019, 2019
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The understanding of surface water methane production in the world oceans is still poor. By combining field studies and incubation experiments, our investigations suggest that zooplankton contributes to subthermocline methane enrichments in the central Baltic Sea by methane production within the digestive tract of copepods and/or by methane production through release of methane precursor substances into the surrounding water, followed by microbial degradation to methane.
Sonja Geilert, Christian Hensen, Mark Schmidt, Volker Liebetrau, Florian Scholz, Mechthild Doll, Longhui Deng, Annika Fiskal, Mark A. Lever, Chih-Chieh Su, Stefan Schloemer, Sudipta Sarkar, Volker Thiel, and Christian Berndt
Biogeosciences, 15, 5715–5731, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-5715-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-5715-2018, 2018
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Abrupt climate changes in Earth’s history might have been triggered by magmatic intrusions into organic-rich sediments, which can potentially release large amounts of greenhouse gases. In the Guaymas Basin, vigorous hydrothermal venting at the ridge axis and off-axis inactive vents show that magmatic intrusions are an effective way to release carbon but must be considered as very short-lived processes in a geological sense. These results need to be taken into account in future climate models.
Alexander R. Schmidt, Dennis Grabow, Christina Beimforde, Vincent Perrichot, Jouko Rikkinen, Simona Saint Martin, Volker Thiel, and Leyla J. Seyfullah
Foss. Rec., 21, 213–221, https://doi.org/10.5194/fr-21-213-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/fr-21-213-2018, 2018
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Amber is fossilized resin and so has a terrestrial source; however, very rarely have marine microorganisms been reported, and only in a few amber pieces. We aim to understand how this rare phenomenon could be possible. Several different mechanisms were proposed, and we then tested the wind-blown idea via our experiments on resin-rich forests on the coast of New Caledonia. These forests encompass the best model for the Cretaceous ambers that contain these marine microorganisms.
Jan-Peter Duda, Volker Thiel, Thorsten Bauersachs, Helge Mißbach, Manuel Reinhardt, Nadine Schäfer, Martin J. Van Kranendonk, and Joachim Reitner
Biogeosciences, 15, 1535–1548, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-1535-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-1535-2018, 2018
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The origin of organic matter in the oldest rocks on Earth is commonly ambiguous (biotic vs. abiotic). This problem culminates in the case of hydrothermal chert veins that contain abundant organic matter. Here we demonstrate a microbial origin of kerogen embedded in a 3.5 Gyr old hydrothermal chert vein. We explain this finding with the large-scale redistribution of biomass by hydrothermal fluids, emphasizing the interplay between biological and abiological processes on the early Earth.
C. Berndmeyer, V. Thiel, O. Schmale, N. Wasmund, and M. Blumenberg
Biogeosciences, 11, 7009–7023, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-11-7009-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-11-7009-2014, 2014
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The water column of the Landsort Deep, central Baltic Sea, is stratified into an oxic, suboxic, and anoxic zone. This stratification controls the distributions of individual microbial communities and biogeochemical processes. Our study of in situ biomarkers in the Landsort Deep provides an integrated insight into the distribution of relevant compounds and describes useful tracers to reconstruct stratified water columns in the geological record.
M. Blumenberg, C. Berndmeyer, M. Moros, M. Muschalla, O. Schmale, and V. Thiel
Biogeosciences, 10, 2725–2735, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-10-2725-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-10-2725-2013, 2013
O. Schmale, M. Blumenberg, K. Kießlich, G. Jakobs, C. Berndmeyer, M. Labrenz, V. Thiel, and G. Rehder
Biogeosciences, 9, 4969–4977, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-9-4969-2012, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-9-4969-2012, 2012
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Biomarker evidence for the occurrence of anaerobic ammonium oxidation in the eastern Mediterranean Sea during Quaternary and Pliocene sapropel formation
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Plant molecules, also called biomarkers, are a tool used for reconstructing climates in the past. In this study, we collected soils and stream sediments in a river catchment in Armenia in order to determine how these molecules move before deposition. We found that trees and grasses produce distinct biomarkers but these are not incorporated equally into stream sediments. Instead, biomarkers from deciduous trees overprint any upstream transport of grass biomarkers.
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Biogeosciences, 19, 5357–5374, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-5357-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-5357-2022, 2022
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With regard to global warming, an understanding of past temperature changes is becoming increasingly important. Branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs) are membrane lipids used globally to reconstruct lake water temperatures. In the Bale Mountains lakes, we find a unique composition of brGDGT isomers. We present a modified local calibration and a new high-altitude temperature reconstruction from the Horn of Africa spanning the last 12.5 kyr.
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Faecal biomarker analyses present a useful tool in geoarcheological research. For a better understanding of the lives of our ancestors in alpine regions, we investigated modern livestock faeces and Holocene soils at the prehistorical encampment site of Ullafelsen in the Fotsch Valley, Stubai Alps, Austria. Initial results show a high input of livestock faeces and a negligible input of human faeces for this archeological site. Future studies will focus on mire archives in the Fotsch Valley.
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The preservation and distribution of alkenones – organic molecules produced by marine algae – in marine sediments allows us to reconstruct past variations in sea surface temperature, primary productivity and CO2. Here, we explore the impact of remobilization and lateral transport of sedimentary alkenones on their fate in marine sediments. We demonstrate the pervasive influence of these processes on alkenone-derived environmental signals, compromising the reliability of related paleorecords.
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We analyzed lignin oxidation products (LOPs) in leaf litter and different soil horizons as well as dripwater and flowstone samples from four different cave sites from different vegetation zones in New Zealand using liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. We test whether the original source-dependent LOP signal of the overlying vegetation is preserved and can be recovered from flowstone samples and investigate how the signal is altered by the transport from the soil to the cave.
Milan L. Teunissen van Manen, Boris Jansen, Francisco Cuesta, Susana León-Yánez, and William D. Gosling
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We measured plant wax in leaves and soils along an environmental gradient in the Ecuadorian Andes. These data show how the wax composition changes as the plant material degrades in different environments. Local temperature is reflected in the wax despite the level degradation. The study results warrant further research into a possible causal relationship that may lead to the development of n-alkane patterns as a novel palaeoecological proxy.
Bingbing Wei, Guodong Jia, Jens Hefter, Manyu Kang, Eunmi Park, Shizhu Wang, and Gesine Mollenhauer
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This research reports the applicability of four organic temperature proxies (U37K', LDI, TEX86H, and RI-OH) to the northern South China Sea shelf. The comparison with local sea surface temperature (SST) indicates the impact of terrestrial input on LDI, TEX86H, and RI-OH proxies near the coast. After excluding samples influenced by terrestrial materials, proxy temperatures exhibit different seasonality, providing valuable tools to reconstruct regional SSTs under different monsoonal conditions.
Jérôme Kaiser, Norbert Wasmund, Mati Kahru, Anna K. Wittenborn, Regina Hansen, Katharina Häusler, Matthias Moros, Detlef Schulz-Bull, and Helge W. Arz
Biogeosciences, 17, 2579–2591, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-2579-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-2579-2020, 2020
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Cyanobacterial blooms represent a threat to the Baltic Sea ecosystem, causing deoxygenation of the bottom water. In order to understand the natural versus anthropogenic factors driving these blooms, it is necessary to study long-term trends beyond observations. We have produced a record of cyanobacterial blooms since 1860 using organic molecules (biomarkers) preserved in sediments. Cyanobacterial blooms in the Baltic Sea are likely mainly related to temperature variability.
Maria-Elena Vorrath, Juliane Müller, Oliver Esper, Gesine Mollenhauer, Christian Haas, Enno Schefuß, and Kirsten Fahl
Biogeosciences, 16, 2961–2981, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-2961-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-2961-2019, 2019
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The study highlights new approaches in the investigation of past sea ice in Antarctica to reconstruct the climate conditions in earth's history and reveal its future development under global warming. We examined the distribution of organic remains from different algae at the Western Antarctic Peninsula and compared it to fossil and satellite records. We evaluated IPSO25 – the sea ice proxy for the Southern Ocean with 25 carbon atoms – as a useful tool for sea ice reconstructions in this region.
Darci Rush, Helen M. Talbot, Marcel T. J. van der Meer, Ellen C. Hopmans, Ben Douglas, and Jaap S. Sinninghe Damsté
Biogeosciences, 16, 2467–2479, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-2467-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-2467-2019, 2019
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Sapropels are layers of sediment that regularly occur in the Mediterranean. They indicate periods when the Mediterranean Sea water contained no oxygen, a gas vital for most large organisms. This research investigated a key process in the nitrogen cycle (anaerobic ammonium oxidation, anammox), which removes nitrogen – an important nutrient to algae – from the water, during sapropel events. Using lipids to trace this process, we found that anammox was active during the no-oxygen times.
Inken Heidke, Denis Scholz, and Thorsten Hoffmann
Biogeosciences, 15, 5831–5845, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-5831-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-5831-2018, 2018
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We developed a sensitive method to analyze the lignin composition of organic traces contained in speleothems. Lignin is a main constituent of woody plants and its composition contains information about the type of vegetation. This method offers new possibilities to reconstruct the vegetation of past millennia since it combines the advantages of lignin analysis as a highly specific vegetation biomarker with the benefits of speleothems as unique terrestrial climate archives.
Jan-Peter Duda, Volker Thiel, Thorsten Bauersachs, Helge Mißbach, Manuel Reinhardt, Nadine Schäfer, Martin J. Van Kranendonk, and Joachim Reitner
Biogeosciences, 15, 1535–1548, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-1535-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-1535-2018, 2018
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The origin of organic matter in the oldest rocks on Earth is commonly ambiguous (biotic vs. abiotic). This problem culminates in the case of hydrothermal chert veins that contain abundant organic matter. Here we demonstrate a microbial origin of kerogen embedded in a 3.5 Gyr old hydrothermal chert vein. We explain this finding with the large-scale redistribution of biomass by hydrothermal fluids, emphasizing the interplay between biological and abiological processes on the early Earth.
Wenjie Xiao, Yinghui Wang, Shangzhe Zhou, Limin Hu, Huan Yang, and Yunping Xu
Biogeosciences, 13, 5883–5894, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-5883-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-5883-2016, 2016
Kimberley L. Davies, Richard D. Pancost, Mary E. Edwards, Katey M. Walter Anthony, Peter G. Langdon, and Lidia Chaves Torres
Biogeosciences, 13, 2611–2621, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-2611-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-2611-2016, 2016
J. Holtvoeth, D. Rushworth, H. Copsey, A. Imeri, M. Cara, H. Vogel, T. Wagner, and G. A. Wolff
Biogeosciences, 13, 795–816, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-795-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-795-2016, 2016
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Lake Ohrid is situated in the southern Balkans between Albania and Macedonia. It is a unique ecosystem with remarkable biodiversity and a sediment record of past climates that goes back more than a million years. Detailed reconstructions of past climate development and human alteration of the environment require underpinned and so in this study we go the present-day lake vegetation and catchment soils and test new proxies over one of the known recent cooling events of the region 8200 years ago.
T. Larsen, L. T. Bach, R. Salvatteci, Y. V. Wang, N. Andersen, M. Ventura, and M. D. McCarthy
Biogeosciences, 12, 4979–4992, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-4979-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-4979-2015, 2015
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A tiny fraction of marine algae escapes decomposition and is buried in sediments. Since tools are needed to track the fate of algal organic carbon, we tested whether naturally occurring isotope variability among amino acids from algae and bacteria can be used as source diagnostic fingerprints. We found that isotope fingerprints track algal amino acid sources with high fidelity across different growth conditions, and that the fingerprints can be used to quantify bacterial amino acids in sediment.
S. Ding, Y. Xu, Y. Wang, Y. He, J. Hou, L. Chen, and J.-S. He
Biogeosciences, 12, 3141–3151, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-3141-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-3141-2015, 2015
P. Sepúlveda, J. P. Le Roux, L. E. Lara, G. Orozco, and V. Astudillo
Biogeosciences, 12, 1993–2001, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-1993-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-1993-2015, 2015
F. Peterse, C. M. Moy, and T. I. Eglinton
Biogeosciences, 12, 933–943, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-933-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-933-2015, 2015
C. Zell, J.-H. Kim, M. Balsinha, D. Dorhout, C. Fernandes, M. Baas, and J. S. Sinninghe Damsté
Biogeosciences, 11, 5637–5655, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-11-5637-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-11-5637-2014, 2014
M. Blumenberg, C. Berndmeyer, M. Moros, M. Muschalla, O. Schmale, and V. Thiel
Biogeosciences, 10, 2725–2735, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-10-2725-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-10-2725-2013, 2013
Y. Lu, Y. Hautevelle, and R. Michels
Biogeosciences, 10, 1943–1962, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-10-1943-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-10-1943-2013, 2013
M. Blumenberg and F. Wiese
Biogeosciences, 9, 4139–4153, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-9-4139-2012, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-9-4139-2012, 2012
D. Rush, E. C. Hopmans, S. G. Wakeham, S. Schouten, and J. S. Sinninghe Damsté
Biogeosciences, 9, 2407–2418, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-9-2407-2012, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-9-2407-2012, 2012
M. D. Wolhowe, F. G. Prahl, I. Probert, and M. Maldonado
Biogeosciences, 6, 1681–1694, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-6-1681-2009, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-6-1681-2009, 2009
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Short summary
Organic matter in Archean hydrothermal cherts may contain molecular traces of early life. Alteration processes during and after deposition, however, may have obliterated potential biosignatures. Our results from modern analog samples (Pleistocene cherts from Lake Magadi, Kenya) show that biomolecules can survive early hydrothermal destruction in the macromolecular fraction of the organic matter. A conservation of molecular biosignatures in Archean hydrothermal cherts therefore seems possible.
Organic matter in Archean hydrothermal cherts may contain molecular traces of early life....
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