Smrzka et al. (2025): Marine carbon burial enhanced by microbial carbonate formation at hydrocarbon seeps
Daniel Smrzka, Yiting Tseng, Jennifer Zwicker, Andrea Schröder-Ritzrau, Norbert Frank, Anne-Désirée Schmitt, Thomas Pape, Daniel Birgel, Jörn Peckmann, Saulwood Lin & Gerhard Bohrmann IN: Communications Earth & Environment 6 (7), https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01960-0
Some of the carbon removed from Earth’s surface is stored within authigenic carbonate in marine sediments. Methane seeps are crucial sites of global marine carbon cycling sustaining microbial activity, enabling carbonate formation and the transfer of methane-derived carbon to the geosphere. Carbon sequestration rates depend on carbonate precipitation rates, which can be accelerated by mat-forming microorganisms that are ubiquitous at methane seeps and other Earth surface environments today. The authors investigate a 5-m-long drill core from an active methane seep at 1350 m water depth in the South China Sea with an exceptional abundance of pink and clear aragonite cement derived from the sulfate-driven anaerobic oxidation of methane, yet both cements precipitated under different conditions. The results of this study provide first kinetic constraints for future quantitative carbon cycle models, emphasizing the role of biofilms in accelerating carbon sequestration in marine authigenic carbonates.