[1] Tropical East African Lake Tanganyika hosts the Earth’s largest anoxic freshwater body. The entire water column holds over 23 Tg of the potent greenhouse gas methane (CH4). Methane is formed under sulphate poor conditions via carbon dioxide reduction or fermentation from detritus and relict sediment organic matter. Permanent density stratification supports an accumulation of CH4 below the p...

Ground-water contamination by chlorinated aliphatic compounds is a major cause for concern because of their toxicity. This study examined the biodegradation of trichloroethylene and aromatic compounds by microbial consortia enriched from contaminated subsurface sediments. The consortia were capable of utilizing methane and propane as sources of carbon and energy. Two continuously recycled expan...

We present spectra of Pluto’s anti-Charon hemisphere obtained from the Keck and Subaru telescopes from 2.8 to 4.2 μm. Combined with 1 2.5 μm spectra from the IRTF telescope, this collective data set lets us constrain several surface frost properties. The surface area of pure nitrogen frost (as opposed to nitrogen with dissolved methane) is constrained to be 6% or less. The ratio of pure to dilu...

Aerobic degradation of methylphosphonate (MPn) by marine bacterioplankton has been hypothesized to contribute significantly to the ocean's methane supersaturation, yet little is known about MPn utilization by marine microbes. To identify the microbial taxa and metabolic functions associated with MPn-driven methane production we performed parallel metagenomic, metatranscriptomic, and functional ...

A spill of gasoline occurred at an automobile service station in 1986. Oily phase residue in the subsurface has, for the past eight years, continued to release water soluble fuel hydrocarbons into the aquifer. The site was characterized for implementation of intrinsic remediation. The subsurface was a beach sand with sea shell fragments. The water table was near 1.3 meters below ground surface....

We tested the hypothesis that low stable carbon isotope (d13C) values commonly observed for zooplankton in humic lakes are due to their feeding on isotopically light methane-oxidizing microbes, and thus that methanederived carbon is important in the food webs of these lakes. In replicate laboratory cultures, Daphnia longispina, a common crustacean zooplankter in humic lakes, were fed microbial ...

This study examines the potential for the biologically mediated anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) coupled to sulfate reduction on ancient Mars. Seven distinct fluids representative of putative martian groundwater were used to calculate Gibbs energy values in the presence of dissolved methane under a range of atmospheric CO2 partial pressures. In all scenarios, AOM is exergonic, ranging from ...

Hydrothermal venting and the formation of carbonate chimneys in the Lost City hydrothermal field (LCHF) are driven predominantly by serpentinization reactions and cooling of mantle rocks, resulting in a highly reducing, high-pH environment with abundant dissolved hydrogen and methane. Phylogenetic and terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analyses of 16S rRNA genes in fluids and car...

Lithologic, faunal, seismic, and isotopic evidence from the Blake Nose (subtropical western North Atlantic) links a massive release of biogenic methane approximately 55.5 million years ago to a warming of deep-ocean and high-latitude surface waters, a large perturbation in the combined ocean-atmosphere carbon cycle (the largest of the past 90 million years), a mass extinction event in benthic f...

Understanding the interactions between hydrogen producers and consumers in the rumen ecosystem is important for ruminant production and methane mitigation. The present study explored the relationships between rumen protozoa, methanogens and fermentation characteristics. A total of six donor sheep harbouring (F, faunated) or not (D, defaunated) protozoa in their rumens (D animals were kept witho...