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Enhanced microbial methane oxidation in water from a deep‐sea hydrothermal vent field at simulated in situ hydrostatic pressures
Author(s) -
de Angelis Marie A.,
Baross John A.,
Lilley Marvin D.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
limnology and oceanography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.7
H-Index - 197
eISSN - 1939-5590
pISSN - 0024-3590
DOI - 10.4319/lo.1991.36.3.0565
Subject(s) - methane , hydrostatic pressure , hydrothermal circulation , atmospheric pressure , anaerobic oxidation of methane , in situ , hydrostatic equilibrium , environmental chemistry , pore water pressure , chemistry , deep sea , hydrothermal vent , environmental science , geology , oceanography , thermodynamics , organic chemistry , quantum mechanics , seismology , physics , geotechnical engineering
Water from a hydrothermal vent field was incubated in the presence of 14 CH 4 under conditions of both atmospheric (1 atm) and simulated in situ hydrostatic pressure (∼200 atm). Methane oxidation rates measured in samples incubated at elevated pressures were 21–62% higher than those measured in replicate samples incubated at atmospheric pressure. The magnitude of the observed effect was consistent with that predicted to occur from changes in CH 4 activity with depth‐dependent pressure, suggesting that microbial CH 4 oxidation is a functionally barophilic process. The data indicate that methane oxidation, as well as other microbial gas consumption processes, is likely to be affected by moderate increases in hydrostatic pressure and that the rates of these processes in the deep sea, based on measurements at atmospheric pressure, may be underestimated.