地质微生物——地球环境中的“协调员”

简单介绍了微生物-地球环境的相互作用,并从微生物矿物相互作用、微生物环境修复、极端环境地质微生物学和古微生物生态重建等四个方面介绍了微生物-地球环境协调发展的意义。

地质微生物学中几项最新研究进展

地质微生物学是地质学和微生物学之间的交叉学科,在过去的十几年中已取得了突飞猛进的发展。该研究领域涉及全球许多种极端环境,例如从地下深部结晶岩、古沉积岩、到现代超盐度湖泊、干旱的沙漠和热液喷口系统等。因为地质微生物学进展的综述可能要用一本专著方可阐述清楚,作者在此仅对地质微生物学几个活跃的前缘研究领域进行了综述,包括大陆深部、盐碱环境、干旱沙漠等极端环境中的微生物生态,白云石的微生物成因,古代沉积岩中的微生物古DNA及其环境意义以及海洋地质微生物学等几个方面。这些研究证明了将地质过程和微生物作用联系起来的重要性。

陕南勉县寒武系仙女洞组生物礁岩相学及古环境分析

【目的】生物礁演化史上一个关键节点是寒武纪早期广泛出现了后生动物古杯与微生物群落的联合造礁,该造礁群落形成环境和发育条件值得探讨。【方法】以华南板块西北缘汉南—米仓山地区的勉县大河坝剖面为例,对寒武系仙女洞组沉积序列和生物礁临近层位开展了系统的岩相学、沉积学和元素地球化学分析。【结果】岩相学特征显示礁体形成于海退背景下的临滨带环境,建造过程可依次分为钙质微生物主导、古杯动物大量繁盛以及古杯与钙质微生物联合建造三个阶段。生物礁灰岩中的陆源碎屑组分含量向上增多,且颗粒变粗,顶部被中—细砂岩覆盖。【结论】古杯—钙质微生物礁生长过程中对低强度的陆源碎屑输入具有一定的耐受度,当粗粒陆源碎屑组分的持续、高强度输入时将造成生物礁发育终止。本实例揭示了古杯—钙质微生物造礁群落生长过程与海底生态指标的相关性,可为古环境学、沉积学和储层地质学相关研究提供参考。

生物岩石学的定义

生物岩石学是研究生物岩(即生物成因岩石)的特征、形成机制、形成环境及其与矿产资源关系的一门新兴交叉学科,其研究内容至少包括生物矿化、现代生物礁、古代生物礁、现代微生物岩石和古代微生物岩石5个方面。生物矿化作用和现代生物岩研究为古代生物岩研究提供了认识基础。由于现代生物圈和环境不同于古代,现代生物矿化作用和生物岩的研究成果并不能全部直接应用于古代生物岩研究。古代生物岩和生物矿化作用的类型比现代丰富得多,不可能全部从现代生物岩和生物矿化作用中找到参照,但可以为现代生物矿化实验研究提供设计思路。生物岩石学的相关学科包括生物学、微生物学、古生物学、古微生物学、沉积学、沉积岩石学、矿物学、地球化学、地质微生物学等。生物岩石学研究需要应用这些学科的知识,也会反哺这些学科。

环境扫描电镜在石油地质研究中的应用

环境扫描电镜在石油地质中有着广泛的应用,能够解决常规扫描电镜原来难以解决或不能解决的众多问题。环境扫描电镜的出现及性能的提高为石油地质开辟了更为广阔的应用前景,可以在含油或水的情况下对样品直接进行分析,更准确地反映矿物岩石的变化。本文综述了环境扫描电镜在粘土矿物、储层孔隙结构、油气层保护、岩相古地理及古微生物分析当中的研究状况。通过电镜扫描可以清楚地观察到储层中粘土矿物的形态、分布特征以及其对储层孔隙结构(孔隙度和渗透率)的影响程度,从而对油气层的破坏类型有更好的了解,在油气开发过程中能够找到相应的和高效的开发措施,使油气采收率达到最高;应用其放大倍数大、立体感强的优点,能够清楚地观察到矿物颗粒表面和微生物内部细微的特征,这对于有效研究沉积相和确定地质年代等工作具有重大意义。

Comparison of paleotemperature reconstructions using microbial tetraether thermometers of the Chinese loess-paleosol sequence for the past 350000 years

The recently proposed global and local calibrations for the mean annual air temperature(MAT) reconstruction on the basis of 5-and 6-methyl brGDGTs have rarely been applied to the Chinese LPS yet, leaving the applicability of these calibrations unclear. Here, we used the improved chromatography method to analyze 198 loess-paleosol samples from the Weinan section in the southern CLP for the past 350 kyr. The 6-methyl brGDGTs comprise a major proportion of total brGDGTs, pointing to alkaline conditions for most soil samples from the Weinan LPS. The decoupled profile variation of MBT′6ME and MBT′_(5ME) suggests their response to different enviromental factors, possibly soil pH(or soil moisture) and temperature, respectively. This discrimination further corraborates that temperature and monsoonal precipitation were not in phase during the last four deglaciations on the CLP. Temperature estimates for the six calibrations tested show similar trends but remarkably differ in amplitudes. The soil moisture appears to affect the global MBT′/CBT calibration, the global MATmr calibration(a calibration based on the multiple linear regression) and the Chinese local SSM(Stepwise Selection Method) calibration, resulting in a significant underestimation of late Holocene temperature. In contrast, the dry climate has no effect on the global MBT′5ME calibration. Of the six calibrations,only the Chinese local SSM calibration and global MATmr calibration produce temperature variation amplitude over the past 350 ka that is consistent with other independent proxy data. The recently proposed local calibrations based on 5-and 6-methyl brGDGTs for North China yield the amplitude of temperature changes that is much larger than the results determined by other approaches.All the six calibrations have their own weakness in the MAT reconstruction, due partly to the inconsistency between the brGDGT distribution in the Weinan LPS and the modern soils used to establish these calibrations.

Microbial influences on paleoenvironmental changes during the Permian-Triassic boundary crisis

The biosphere interacts and co-evolves with natural environments.Much is known about the biosphere’s response to ancient environmental perturbations,but less about the biosphere’s influences on environmental change through earth history.Here,we discuss the roles of microbes in environmental changes during the critical Permian-Triassic(P-Tr)transition and present a perspective on future geomicrobiological investigations.Lipid biomarkers,stable isotopic compositions of carbon,nitrogen and sulfur,and mineralogical investigations have shown that a series of microbial functional groups might have flourished during the P-Tr transition,including those capable of sulfate reduction,anaerobic H2S oxidation,methanogenesis,aerobic CH4oxidation,denitrification,and nitrogen fixation.These microbes may have served to both enhance and degrade the habitability of the Earth-surface environment during this crisis.The integrated microbial roles have enabled the Earth’s exosphere to be a self-regulating system.

Bacterial and archaeal communities in the surface sediment from the northern slope of the South China Sea

Microbial diversity of sediments from the northern slope of the South China Sea was studied by constructing bacterial and archaeal 16S rRNA gene clone libraries. Fourteen bacterial phylogenetic groups were detected, including Gammaproteobacteria, Deltaproteobacteria, Planctomycetes, Alphaproteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, Chloroflexi, Acidobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, Nitrospirae, candidate divisions OP8 and OP 11, and an unknown group. Gammaproteobacteria was the predominant group in bacterial libraries with the percentage ranging from 31.8% to 63.2%. However, archaeal libraries had relatively lower diversity, with most clones belonging to marine archaeal group I uncultured Crenarehaeota. In addition, two novel euryarchaeal clones were detected not to match any culture-dependent or -independent isolates. Compared with other gas hydrate-rich ecosystems and different areas of the South China Sea, a distinct microbial community was revealed in this study.

Environmental impacts on the distribution of microbial tetraether lipids in Chinese lakes with contrasting pH: Implications for lacustrine paleoenvironmental reconstructions

Glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers(GDGTs) in lake sediments are useful biomarkers for the continental paleoclimatic reconstruction. However, the environmental controls on the distribution of these compounds, in particular the 6-methyl isomers of bacterial branched GDGTs(bGDGTs), in the lakes with contrasting pH, are still unknown, hindering their application for paleo-reconstructions. Here, we investigated the environmental impacts on the distribution of GDGTs in 17 alkaline lakes and 1 acid lake in China. It was found that the dissolved oxygen content in water column may have an impact on the distribution of archaeal isoprenoid GDGTs(iGDGTs) by causing the change in archaeal communities. The ratio of GDGT-0/crenarchaeol increases with decreasing oxygen content, indicating that the relative abundance of anaerobic methanogenic archaea or Miscellaneous Crenarchaeotic Group(MCG) vs. aerobic Thaumarchaeota is controlled by the oxygen content dissolved in water of these lakes. Thaumarchaeota are likely to contribute only a small proportion of iGDGTs in the relatively oxygen-depleted lakes, and thus TEX_(86) is not suitable for the reconstruction of the surface temperature of these lakes. The abundance ratio of iGDGTs to bGDGTs(R_(i/b)) appears to show no relationship with water pH in all the lakes, but exhibits a significant positive correlation with the water depth of the acid Lake Qinghai in Tengchong. As expected, the methylation degree of bGDGTs(MBT′) was found to correlate with both mean annual air temperature(MAT) and water pH, and the cyclization degree of bGDGTs(CBT) correlates only with water pH in these lakes. However, the MBT′_(5ME), an index to measure the methylation degree of 5-methyl bGDGTs, exhibits no relationship with MAT, whereas MBT′_(6ME), the methylation degree of 6-methyl bGDGTs, was found to correlate significantly with MAT. This is opposite to the situation observed in the global soils, pointing to a different adaptation of b GDGT-producing bacteria to environmental variables or different microbial sources of bGDGTs in these lakes. The relative abundance of 6- vs. 5-methyl bGDGTs is controlled by pH in these lakes, similar to that observed in worldwide soils. Hence, the isomer ratio(IR) of 6-methyl bGDGTs or CBT′ can be used as a proxy for water pH, although they might be influenced by other environmental factors including temperature in the lakes with a narrow range of pH.

Biotic evolution and its relation with geological events in the Proterozoic Yanshan Basin, North China

The Yanshan Basin,located in northern North China,underwent three primary stages in the Mesoproterozoic,and corresponding biotas have been summarized for each stage in the present study.The three stages are stage A(the lower part of the Changcheng Group which dominated by clastic sediments),stage B(the upper part of the Changcheng Group to the Jixian Group which characterized by carbonate sediments),and stage C(the upper part of the Jixian Group which dominated by clastic sediments).This paper will focus on the evolution of biota during stage B.Microbiota of the stage B exhibits a high level of diversity and abundance.Planktonic microfossils have various forms and complex decorations.Most microfossils are small.In stage B,there was great variation in the biotic abundance and diversity,the average diameter of spherical benthic microfossils,and the maximum diameter of the spherical microfossils.We analyzed these parameters and identified two typical biotic events,and both biotic events were corresponded with geological events.The first event occurred in the third member of the Dahongyu Formation.In this era,the maximum diameter of the silicified microfossils significantly increased,and large,spherical planktonic specimens are abundant.The flourishing of large organisms in the strata is presumably related to volcanic activity.The second event occurred in the third member of the Gaoyuzhuang Formation.During this era,the microfossil assemblage changed significantly.The changes correspond with a decline in stromatolites as well as the transformations of the carbon isotope ratios and the elemental geochemistry.