{"id":250,"date":"2015-12-28T02:09:20","date_gmt":"2015-12-28T02:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/192.168.99.100:8080\/award\/a-lost-city-type-hydrothermal-system-in-readily-accessible-shallow-water\/"},"modified":"2017-10-24T11:14:18","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T18:14:18","slug":"a-lost-city-type-hydrothermal-system-in-readily-accessible-shallow-water","status":"publish","type":"award","link":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/award\/a-lost-city-type-hydrothermal-system-in-readily-accessible-shallow-water\/","title":{"rendered":"A Lost City-type hydrothermal system in readily accessible, shallow water"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Strytan Hydrothermal Field (SHF; Eyjafjord, northern Iceland) exhibits alkaline (pH ~ 10), hot (up to 78\u00b0C), submarine hydrothermal venting, resulting in the formation of numerous saponite towers. We performed a detailed geochemical and microbiological characterization of hydrothermal fluids and precipitates from the site. End-member calculations revealed elevated concentrations of many major and trace elements (e.g., 2.4 mM Na, 3 to 27 \u03bcM K, 40 to 120 \u03bcM Ca, 10 to 25 \u03bcM B, and overall high concentrations of trace elements). We hypothesize that recharge of meteoric water occurs in the mountains south of Eyjafjord, and low temperature alteration of plagioclase, pyroxene and olivine in basalt, and precipitation of calcite, occurs in a closed system. This explains the observed high pH, variable Ca concentrations, and low DIC. CH<sub>4<\/sub>, H<sub>2<\/sub>, and CO concentrations were all elevated relative to normal seawater (up to 1.41, 5.19, and 0.13 \u03bcM, respectively), and a range of \u03b4<sup>13<\/sup>C-CH<sub>4<\/sub> was measured. Weathering of pyroxene may produce H<sub>2<\/sub>, which combines with CO<sub>2<\/sub> to form abiotic CH<sub>4<\/sub>. The abiotic production of H<sub>2<\/sub> and CH<sub>4<\/sub> in a site such as the SHF broadens the range of potential origin of life environments significantly. Intact polar lipids indicate Bacteria dominated all samples except one. Up to 50% of the lipids at this site were archaeal. Bacterial clone sequences were dominated by <em>betaproteobacteria<\/em> (<em>Dechloromonas sp.<\/em>), followed by <em>deltaproteobacteria<\/em> (<em>Desulfovibrio sp.<\/em>) Archaeal results indicate a dominance of <em>Crenarchaeota<\/em>, particularly <em>Thermoproteales<\/em>, followed by <em>Desulfurococcales<\/em>. More detailed analysis of microbial communities is currently underway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":[],"award_type":[11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/awards\/250"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/awards"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/award"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"award_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/award_type?post=250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}