0000000000247582
AUTHOR
Pieter T. Visscher
Between a rock and a soft place: the role of viruses in lithification of modern microbial mats.
10 pages; International audience; Stromatolites are geobiological systems formed by complex microbial communities, and fossilized stromatolites provide a record of some of the oldest life on Earth. Microbial mats are precursors of extant stromatolites; however, the mechanisms of transition from mat to stromatolite are controversial and are still not well understood. To fully recognize the profound impact that these ecosystems have had on the evolution of the biosphere requires an understanding of modern lithification mechanisms and how they relate to the geological record. We propose here viral mechanisms in carbonate precipitation, leading to stromatolite formation, whereby viruses directl…
Distribution, redox state and (bio)geochemical implications of arsenic in present day microbialites of Laguna Brava, Salar de Atacama
Understanding how microorganisms adapted to the high arsenic concentration present on early Earth requires understanding of the processes involved in the arsenic biogeochemical cycle operating in living microbial mats. To this end, we investigated a living microbial mat from Laguna Brava (Salar de Atacama, Chile), a hypersaline lake with high arsenic concentration, using an array of conventional geochemical techniques, such as X-ray diffraction, SEM-EDX and Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy (CLSM), combined with state-of-the-art high resolution scanning imaging techniques, including X-ray micro-fluorescence (μXRF) and X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure (XANES) mapping. This experimental …
Formation of microbial organic carbonates during the Late Jurassic from the Northern Tethys (Amu Darya Basin, Uzbekistan): implications for Jurassic anoxic events.
23 pages; International audience; The Late Jurassic was a period of major global carbon cycle perturbations with episodes of anoxia leading to regional accumulation of organic matter in sediments worldwide. The Tubiegatan section (SW Gissar Mountains, Uzbekistan) located in the Northern Tethys, shows atypical organic-rich limestone and marl deposits (up to 6% of total organic carbon) marked by pronounced negative excursions of δ13Ccarb (amplitude of ca. 12‰) and δ13Corg (amplitude of ca. 4‰) recorded during the Middle Oxfordian (Transversarium Zone). A transdisciplinary approach including sedimentology, palynofacies characterization, mineralogy, organic and inorganic geochemistry was carrie…
Oligo-Miocene lacustrine microbial and metazoan buildups from the Limagne Basin (French Massif Central)
The Limagne Basin (French Massif Central) is an extensive continental lacustrine system accommodating microbial and metazoan buildups from Chattian to Aquitanian age. A description of these buildups and their associated biotic components in Grand Gandaillat and Crechy quarries provides insights into their spatio-temporal distribution patterns. Flats, cauliflowers, domes, cones and coalescent columnar morphologies have been identified with a main laminated mesofabric and laminated, columnar, filamentous and caddisfly-coated microfabrics. Two low-gradient margin models emerged based on the changes in the distribution, morphology and size of the microbial and metazoan-rich deposits through tim…
Geochemical evidence for arsenic cycling in living microbialites of a High Altitude Andean Lake (Laguna Diamante, Argentina)
Arsenic is best known as an environmental toxin, but this element could also serve as a metabolic energy source to certain microorganisms. Moreover, As cycling may have driven microbial life on early Earth prior to oxygenation of the atmosphere. Still, little is known about the arsenic cycling processes occurring in the presence of microorganisms and the possible traces that could be preserved in the rock record. To advance our understanding of this we studied the geochemical proxies of microbial As metabolism in living microbialites from Laguna Diamante, a likely Precambrian ecosystem analogue (Catamarca, Argentina). In this study, we show that the coexistence of As(III) and As(V) strongly…