Subglacial erosion has the potential to sustain microbial processes in Subglacial Lake Whillans, Antarctica

Subglacial Lake Whillans lies below around 800m of Antarctic ice and is isolated from fresh sources of photosynthetic organic matter to sustain life. The diverse microbial ecosystems within the lake and underlying sediments are therefore dependent on a combination of relict, overridden, marine-deriv...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Communications Earth & Environment
Main Authors: Gill-Olivas, Beatriz, Telling, Jon, Tranter, Martyn, Skidmore, Mark, Christner, Brent, O'Doherty, Simon, Priscu, John
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2021
Subjects:
ACTIVE RESERVOIR BENEATH
HAUT-GLACIER-DAROLLA
ICE STREAM-B
HYDROGEN-PEROXIDE
WEST ANTARCTICA
FLUID INCLUSIONS
H-2 GENERATION
OXIDATION
METHANE
PYRITE
Antarctic
West Antarctica
Whillans
Antarc*
Antarctica
Ice Stream B
Online Access:https://pure.au.dk/portal/da/publications/subglacial-erosion-has-the-potential-to-sustain-microbial-processes-in-subglacial-lake-whillans-antarctica(af5b9b35-2ca3-4e4b-9a8c-6f254381b9b1).html
https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-021-00202-x
http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85130420820&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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Summary:Subglacial Lake Whillans lies below around 800m of Antarctic ice and is isolated from fresh sources of photosynthetic organic matter to sustain life. The diverse microbial ecosystems within the lake and underlying sediments are therefore dependent on a combination of relict, overridden, marine-derived organic matter and mineral-derived energy. Here, we conduct experiments to replicate subglacial erosion involving both gentle and high-energy crushing of Subglacial Lake Whillans sediments and the subsequent addition of anoxic water. We find that substantial quantities of reduced species, including hydrogen, methane, acetate and ammonium and oxidised species such as hydrogen peroxide, sulfate and carbon dioxide are released. We propose that the concomitant presence of both hydrogen and hydrogen peroxide, alongside high concentrations of mineral surface radicals, suggests that the splitting of water on freshly abraded mineral surfaces increases the concentrations of redox pairs from rock-water reactions and could provide a mechanism to augment the energy available to microbial ecosystems. The crushing and wetting of rocks by erosion under glaciers produces chemical compounds that could fuel microbial activity, as demonstrated by experiments on material collected from Subglacial Lake Whillans in Antarctica

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