Mineral Precipitation by Idiomarina Loihiensis and Myxococcus Xanthus: Implications for the Biogeochemical Cycles of Carbon and Barium in the Mediterranean

Microbial processes played a major role in mineral precipitation throughout the Earth’s history. Such processes have been widely discussed for the last few decades with regard to carbonate precipitation. Other than microbial precipitation of carbonates, in natural environments is also of great interest the potential role of microbes in the precipitation of marine barite. Regarding carbonates, our experiments show how certain isolated bacteria from the Alboran Sea surface waters are able to precipitate different Mg-rich carbonates at modern marine seawater salinity. Ongoing work also focuses on bacterial precipitation of marine barite and its role in the biogeochemical cycle of barium and in the record of this element in Mediterranean paleoenvironments.