Search results for "Geothermal soil"
showing 3 items of 3 documents
The importance of methanotrophic activity in geothermal soils of Pantelleria island (Italy)
2013
Methane is a major contributor to the greenhouse effect, its atmospheric concentration being more than doubled since the XIX century. Every year 22 Tg of methane are released to the atmosphere from several natural and anthropogenic sources. Natural sources include geothermal/volcanic areas but the estimation of the total methane emission from these areas is currently not well defined since the balance between emission through degassing and microbial oxidation within the soils is not well known. Microbial oxidation in soils contributes globally for about 3-9% to the removal of methane from the atmosphere and recent studies evidenced methanotrophic activity also in soils of volcanic/geotherma…
Greenhouse gas as a nutrient: methanotrophic activity in soils of hydrothermal systems
2012
Methane is the most abundant hydrocarbon in the atmosphere and a significant contributor to the radiative forcing with a global warming potential about 21 times that of CO2. Methane is released to the atmosphere by a wide number of sources, both natural and anthropogenic, with the latter being twice as large as the former. Significant amounts of geological methane, produced within the Earth’s crust (e.g. volcanic/geothermal areas), are currently released into the atmosphere (48 Tg CH4/y). Microbial oxidation in soils by methanotrophic bacteria contributes to the removal of CH4 from the atmosphere for about 3-9%. Methanotrophs belong to the Gamma- and Alpha-proteobacteria and to the recently…
Exploring methanotrophic activity in geothermal soils from Pantelleria Island (Italy)
2012
Methane is released to the atmosphere by a wide number of natural (geological and biological) and anthropogenic sources, and is the second most important greenhouse gas after CO2. Microbial oxidation in soils by methanotrophic bacteria contributes to the removal of CH4 from the atmosphere and methanotrophic activity was also detected in volcanic/geothermal areas where degassing of endogenous gases occurs. Our aim is to describe the methanotrophs at the main exhalative area of Le Favare site at Pantelleria Island, where high CH4 consumption (up to 950 ng/g/ per h) was measured. Total soil bacterial diversity was analysed by TTGE of amplified 16S rRNA genes and the diversity of proteobacteria…