What causes low magnetization at basalt-hosted hydrothermal sites? Insights from inactive site Krasnov (MAR 16°38′N)

Carbon fixation by basalt-hosted microbial communities

Oceanic crust is a massive potential habitat for microbial life on Earth, yet our understanding of this ecosystem is limited due to difficulty in access. In particular, measurements of rates of microbial activity are sparse. We used stable carbon isotope incubations of crustal samples, coupled with functional gene analyses, to examine the potential for carbon fixation on oceanic crust. Both sea...

Linking Hydrothermal Geochemistry to Organismal Physiology: Physiological Versatility in Riftia pachyptila from Sedimented and Basalt-hosted Vents

Much of what is known regarding Riftia pachyptila physiology is based on the wealth of studies of tubeworms living at diffuse flows along the fast-spreading, basalt-hosted East Pacific Rise (EPR). These studies have collectively suggested that Riftia pachyptila and its chemoautotrophic symbionts are physiologically specialized, highly productive associations relying on hydrogen sulfide and oxyg...

What Causes Successful Late Development? Insights from History

A serpentinite-hosted ecosystem: the Lost City hydrothermal field.

The serpentinite-hosted Lost City hydrothermal field is a remarkable submarine ecosystem in which geological, chemical, and biological processes are intimately interlinked. Reactions between seawater and upper mantle peridotite produce methane- and hydrogen-rich fluids, with temperatures ranging from <40 degrees to 90 degrees C at pH 9 to 11, and carbonate chimneys 30 to 60 meters tall. A low d...

Solubility of water in lunar basalt at low pH2O

We report the solubility of water in Apollo 15 basaltic ‘Yellow Glass’ and an iron-free basaltic analog composition at 1 atm and 1350 °C. We equilibrated melts in a 1-atm furnace with flowing H2/CO2 gas mixtures that spanned ~8 orders of magnitude in fO2 (from three orders of magnitude more reducing than the iron-wüstite buffer, IW−3.0, to IW+4.8) and ~4 orders of magnitude in pH2/pH2O (from 0....