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Article
Open AccessA non-methanogenic archaeon within the order Methanocellales
Serpentinization, a geochemical process found on modern and ancient Earth, provides an ultra-reducing environment that can support microbial methanogenesis and acetogenesis. Several groups of archaea, such as ...
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Article
Open AccessCorrection: Distribution of eukaryotic environmental DNA in global subseafloor sediments
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Article
Open AccessDistribution of eukaryotic environmental DNA in global subseafloor sediments
The analysis of eukaryotic environmental DNA (eDNA) in sediment has the potential for understanding past ecosystems, even for taxa lacking skeletons or preserved only as a part of necromass. Despite the paleoe...
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Article
Open AccessUniquely low stable iron isotopic signatures in deep marine sediments caused by Rayleigh distillation
Dissimilatory iron reduction (DIR) is suggested to be one of the earliest forms of microbial respiration. It plays an important role in the biogeochemical cycling of iron in modern and ancient sediments. Since...
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Article
Open AccessGenome characterization of two novel deep-sea sediment fungi, Penicillium pacificagyrus sp. nov. and Penicillium pacificasedimenti sp. nov., from South Pacific Gyre subseafloor sediments, highlights survivability
Marine deep subsurface sediments were once thought to be devoid of eukaryotic life, but advances in molecular technology have unlocked the presence and activity of well-known closely related terrestrial and ma...
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Article
Open AccessAerobic microbial life persists in oxic marine sediment as old as 101.5 million years
Sparse microbial populations persist from seafloor to basement in the slowly accumulating oxic sediment of the oligotrophic South Pacific Gyre (SPG). The physiological status of these communities, including th...
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Article
Open AccessDeep microbial proliferation at the basalt interface in 33.5–104 million-year-old oceanic crust
The upper oceanic crust is mainly composed of basaltic lava that constitutes one of the largest habitable zones on Earth. However, the nature of deep microbial life in oceanic crust remains poorly understood, ...
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Article
Author Correction: Persistent organic matter in oxic subseafloor sediment
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.
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Article
Open AccessCultivable microbial community in 2-km-deep, 20-million-year-old subseafloor coalbeds through ~1000 days anaerobic bioreactor cultivation
Recent explorations of scientific ocean drilling have revealed the presence of microbial communities persisting in sediments down to ~2.5 km below the ocean floor. However, our knowledge of these microbial pop...
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Article
Open AccessSignificant contribution of subseafloor microparticles to the global manganese budget
Ferromanganese minerals are widely distributed in subseafloor sediments and on the seafloor in oceanic abyssal plains. Assessing their input, formation and preservation is important for understanding the globa...
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Article
Persistent organic matter in oxic subseafloor sediment
Nearly half of the global seafloor is overlain by sediment oxygenated to the basement. Yet, despite the availability of oxygen to fuel aerobic respiration, organic carbon persists over million-year timescales....
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Article
Open AccessIn-situ mechanical weakness of subducting sediments beneath a plate boundary décollement in the Nankai Trough
The study investigates the in-situ strength of sediments across a plate boundary décollement using drilling parameters recorded when a 1180-m-deep borehole was established during International Ocean Discovery ...
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Article
Open AccessGeophysical constraints on microbial biomass in subseafloor sediments and coal seams down to 2.5 km off Shimokita Peninsula, Japan
To understand the ability of microbial life to inhabit a deep subseafloor coalbed sedimentary basin, the correlation between fluid transport properties and the abundance of microbial cells was investigated bas...
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Article
Open AccessBioturbation as a key driver behind the dominance of Bacteria over Archaea in near-surface sediment
The factors controlling the relative abundances of Archaea and Bacteria in marine sediments are poorly understood. We determined depth distributions of archaeal and bacterial 16S rRNA genes by quantitative PCR...
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Presence of oxygen and aerobic communities from sea floor to basement in deep-sea sediments
The depth of oxygen penetration and microbial activity in marine sediments varies by region. Sediment cores from the South Pacific Gyre host oxygen and aerobic microbial communities to at least 75 metres below...
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Article
Thiofractor thiocaminus gen. nov., sp. nov., a novel hydrogen-oxidizing, sulfur-reducing epsilonproteobacterium isolated from a deep-sea hydrothermal vent chimney in the Nikko Seamount field of the northern Mariana Arc
A novel chemolithoautotrophic hydrogen-oxidizing and sulfur-reducing bacterium, strain 496ChimT, was isolated from a deep-sea hydrothermal vent chimney collected from the hydrothermal field at the summit of Nikko...
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Article
Sedimentary membrane lipids recycled by deep-sea benthic archaea
Archaea are prevalent in the deep sea, and comprise a major fraction of the biomass in marine sediments. 13C-labelling experiments on the sea floor suggest that benthic archaea use sedimentary organic compounds t...
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Article
Significant contribution of Archaea to extant biomass in marine subsurface sediments
Deep drilling into the marine sea floor has uncovered a vast sedimentary ecosystem of microbial cells1,2. Extrapolation of direct counts of stained microbial cells to the total volume of habitable marine subsurfa...
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Article
Phylogenetic and enzymatic diversity of deep subseafloor aerobic microorganisms in organics- and methane-rich sediments off Shimokita Peninsula
“A meta-enzyme approach” is proposed as an ecological enzymatic method to explore the potential functions of microbial communities in extreme environments such as the deep marine subsurface. We evaluated a var...
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Spatial Distribution of the Subseafloor Life: Diversity and Biogeography
Marine subsurface sediments that cover more than two-thirds of the Earth harbor remarkable numbers of microbial cells. Subseafloor microbial activities may affect global biogeochemical cycles; however, our kno...
