Archaeal lipids record paleosalinity in hypersaline systems

Turich, Courtney; Freeman, Katherine H.

doi:10.1016/j.orggeochem.2011.06.002

Cited by 30 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…Previous paleobiology studies find ample evidence that halophilic microorganisms were present in the water column during deposition of the marginal Messinian evaporites (e.g. Turich and Freeman, 2011;Birgel et al, 2014). Our study is the first to use modern methods to isolate molecular organic compounds that are diagnostic of the environmental setting of the uppermost abyssal Messinian evaporites.…”

Section: Lipid Biomarkersmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…Investigations in modern settings document how the relative abundances of archaeal lipids vary throughout the water column and across extreme temperature and salinity gradients (Karner et al, 2001;Schouten et al, 2002;Turich et al, 2007;Turich and Freeman, 2011). Relative abundances of archaeal lipids form the basis for estimating sea-surface temperature , and salinity (Turich and Freeman, 2011), discussed in detail below.…”

Section: Lipid Biomarkersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our approach is to use organic geochemistry to estimate key paleoenvironmental indicators for the available core samples of abyssal evaporites. Relative abundances of fossil archaeal lipids are commonly used to determine the paleoenvironment of sediments, including temperature and salinity Turich and Freeman, 2011). Here we use this analysis to characterize the evaporite facies of the abyssal Mediterranean at the end of the Messinian, and provide an upper limit for the amount of sea level drawdown.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evidence for deep-water deposition of abyssal Mediterranean evaporites during the Messinian salinity crisis

Christeleit

Brandon

Zhuang

2015

Earth and Planetary Science Letters

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Keywords:Messinian salinity crisis ACE index TEX 86 Mediterranean sea deep sea drilling project Scientific drilling of the abyssal evaporites beneath the deepest parts of the Mediterranean basin gave rise to the idea that the Mediterranean sea completely evaporated at the end of the Messinian. Herein, we show, using new organic geochemical data, that those evaporites were deposited beneath a deepwater saline basin, not in a subaerial saltpan, as originally proposed. Abundant fossil organic lipids were extracted from evaporites in Mediterranean Deep Sea Drilling Project cores. The archaeal lipid distribution and new analyses, using the ACE salinity proxy and TEX 86 temperature proxy, indicate that surface waters at the time of evaporite deposition had normal marine salinity, ranging from ∼26 to 34 practical salinity units, and temperatures of 25-28 • C. These conditions require a deep-water setting, with a mixed layer with normal marine salinity and an underlying brine layer at gypsum and halite saturation. After correction for isostatic rebound, our results indicate maximum drawdown of ∼2000 m and ∼2900 m relative to modern sea level in the western and eastern Mediterranean basins, respectively. Our results are consistent with previously proposed scenarios for sea level drawdown based on both subaerial and submarine incision and backfilling of the Rhone and Nile rivers, which require Messinian sea level drops of ∼1300 m and ∼200 m, respectively. This study provides new evidence for an old debate and also demonstrates the importance of further scientific drilling and sampling of deeper part of the abyssal Messinian units.

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Section: Lipid Biomarkersmentioning

confidence: 83%

Section: Lipid Biomarkersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evidence for deep-water deposition of abyssal Mediterranean evaporites during the Messinian salinity crisis

Christeleit

Brandon

Zhuang

2015

Earth and Planetary Science Letters

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“…Studies of carbonate crusts from active mud volcanoes (Stadnitskaia et al, 2005) and of Black Sea AOM mats (Blumenberg et al, 2004) demonstrated an imperfect link between recovered lipids and 16S rRNA gene sequences, in which higher complexity lipid profiles suggested a more diverse microbial assemblage. In this context, lipid biomarkers, which are commonly used in geobiological studies to constrain communities or environmental conditions (e.g., Vestal and White, 1989;Turich and Freeman, 2011), may represent a time-integrated signal of microbial constituents and/or an accumulation of exogenous material rather than a faithful snapshot of a single community.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microbial abundance and diversity patterns associated with sediments and carbonates from the methane seep environments of Hydrate Ridge, OR

et al. 2014

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Methane seeps are among the most productive habitats along continental margins, as anaerobic methane-oxidizing euryarchaeaota and sulfur-metabolizing deltaproteobacteria form the biological base of a dynamic deep-sea ecosystem. The degree of methane seepage therefore represents one important variable in ecosystem dynamics, and the recent discovery of carbonate-hosted endolithic methanotrophy exposes another potentially discriminating factor: physical substrate type. Methanotrophic microbial communities have been detected within diverse seep-associated habitats, including unlithified sediments, protolithic carbonate nodules, and lithified carbonate slabs and chemoherms of distinct mineralogies. However, a systematic assessment of the diversity and community structure associated with these different habitats has been lacking. In this study, microbial aggregate analysis, microbial abundance quantification, mineralogical identification, and archaeal and bacterial 16S rRNA gene clone libraries were used to deconvolve the relationships between seepage activity, substrate type, and microbial community structure. We report prevalent methane-oxidizing archaeal lineages in both active and low-activity seep settings, and a strong community dependence on both seepage activity and substrate type. Statistical treatments of relative taxa abundances indicate that archaeal community structure is more dependent on the degree of methane seepage than physical substrate type; bacterial assemblages appear to be more strongly influenced by the type of colonization substrate than seepage activity. These findings provide a window into the determinants of community structure and function, improving our understanding of potential elemental cycling at seep sites.

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“…The peak areas obtained for archaeol and GDGTs on the HPLC/APCI-MS were assumed to have identical response factors, which were obtained from standards of archaeol and GDGT-0 and were found to be 1.07 and 1, respectively (J.S. Lipp, personal communication), and not containing a factor of 30 for archaeol, as proposed by Turich and Freeman (2011).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time integrated variation of sources of fluids and seepage dynamics archived in authigenic carbonates from Gulf of Mexico Gas Hydrate Seafloor Observatory

et al. 2014

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Archaeal lipids record paleosalinity in hypersaline systems

Cited by 30 publications

References 80 publications

Evidence for deep-water deposition of abyssal Mediterranean evaporites during the Messinian salinity crisis

Evidence for deep-water deposition of abyssal Mediterranean evaporites during the Messinian salinity crisis

Microbial abundance and diversity patterns associated with sediments and carbonates from the methane seep environments of Hydrate Ridge, OR

Time integrated variation of sources of fluids and seepage dynamics archived in authigenic carbonates from Gulf of Mexico Gas Hydrate Seafloor Observatory

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