Anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) at the thaw front of subsea permafrost

• Main Authors: Winkel, Matthias, Magritz, Julia, Horn, Fabian, Overduin, Paul, Knoblauch, Christian, Wagner, Dirk
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: laptev; Laptev Sea; permafrost
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/47639/; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.63205144-918a-424f-be34-e6bbd2103862

Introduction: Thawing arctic subsea permafrost is a source of organic carbon in deep sediment layers. The permafrost that is at its thermal equilibrium releases biologically produced methane and a deep sulfate-methane transition zone (SMTZ) is formed due to sulfate-rich overlaying marine sediment layers. The process of methane oxidation in this anaerobic environment has been suggested1 but AOM associated microbial communities remain to be identified. Objectives: We aimed at providing evidence for anaerobic methanotrophic (ANME) archaeal communities at the deep SMTZ of the north-east Siberian Laptev Sea shelf. Material and methods: Two sediment cores were retrieved (77 m and 47.4 m deep) from the coastal shelf north of Cape Mamontov Klyk ‘C2’ (11.5 km offshore) and west to the Buor Khaya Peninsula ‘BK2’ (800 m offshore), respectively. Methane and sulfate concentrations as well as 13C isotope values of CH4 were measured and correlated with molecular analysis of microbial communities along the thaw front. Results: At the thaw front of BK2, at 23.7 meters below sea floor (mbsf) biologically produced methane (13 C= -70‰ VPDB) gets oxidized (13C= -29.8 ‰ VPDB)1. At the same depth, we found an increase in functional genes of methanogenic archaea (mcrA) and sulfate reducing bacteria (dsrB) analysed by quantitative PCR. Massive parallel tag-sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene showed an increase of ANME-2a/2b and ANME-2d sequences towards the thaw front in both cores. At the thaw front of the BK2 core, typical ANME-2 partners of the Desulfobacterales2were found to dominate the sulfate reducing bacterial community, whereas Desulfobaccasequences dominate in all samples of the C2 core. Theoretical methane oxidation rates (0.4-6 nmol cm-3d-1)1based on estimated methane fluxes showed higher values than typically found in subsurface sediments and are more similar to rates of margin SMTZs3. Conclusion: Our data indicate that active anaerobic methane oxidizer communities at the thaw front of subsea permafrost prevent methane from ...